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Australian Indigenous house crowding
authored by
Paul Memmott, Christina Birdsall-Jones and Kelly Greenop
for the
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
Queensland Research Centre
October 2012
AHURI Final Report No. 194
ISSN: 1834-7223
ISBN: 978-1-922075-12-3
i
Authors Memmott, Paul
Birdsall-Jones, Christina
Greenop, Kelly
University of Queensland
Curtin University
University of Queensland
Title Australian Indigenous house crowding
ISBN 978-1-922075-12-3
Format PDF
Key words Indigenous, overcrowding, housing management, Indigenous health
Editor Anne Badenhorst AHURI National Office
Publisher Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
Melbourne, Australia
Series AHURI Final Report; no.194
ISSN 1834-7223
Preferred citation Memmott, P. et al. (2012) Australian Indigenous house crowding,
AHURI Final Report No.194. Melbourne: Australian Housing and
Urban Research Institute.
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This material was produced with funding from the Australian Government and the
Australian states and territory governments. AHURI Limited gratefully acknowledges
the financial and other support it has received from these governments, without which
this work would not have been possible. AHURI comprises a network of universities
clustered into Research Centres across Australia. Research Centre contributions,
both financial and in-kind, have made the completion of this report possible.
The authors express their appreciation to their Aboriginal colleagues and co-
researchers, Carroll Go-Sam and Vanessa Corunna who co-authored the Positioning
Paper; to Adjunct Associate Professor Joseph Reser for crowding modelling advice; to
Vanessa, Keith Marshall and Patricia Conlon for fieldwork liaison with interviewees
and to Linda Thomson and Shelley Templeman for document production. We would
also like to thank our two anonymous referees who highlighted various blemishes in
our report which we have hopefully addressed and resolved.
DISCLAIMER
AHURI Limited is an independent, non-political body which has supported this project
as part of its program of research into housing and urban development, which it hopes
will be of value to policy-makers, researchers, industry and communities. The opinions
in this publication reflect the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those
of AHURI Limited, its Board or its funding organisations. No responsibility is accepted
by AHURI Limited or its Board or its funders for the accuracy or omission of any
statement, opinion, advice or information in this publication.
AHURI FINAL REPORT SERIES
AHURI Final Reports is a refereed series presenting the results of original research to
a diverse readership of policy-makers, researchers and practitioners.
PEER REVIEW STATEMENT
An objective assessment of all reports published in the AHURI Final Report Series by
carefully selected experts in the field ensures that material of the highest quality is
published. The AHURI Final Report Series employs a double-blind peer review of the
full Final Report—where anonymity is strictly observed between authors and referees.
iii
CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................VII
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................... IX
ACRONYMS ................................................................................................................ X
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .............................................................................................. 1
1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 5
1.1 Debunking density ............................................................................................... 5
1.2 Factors contributing to crowding .......................................................................... 6
1.2.1 Loss of personal control .............................................................................. 6
1.2.2 Variable experiences of stress .................................................................... 7
1.3 Gifford’s integrative theory of crowding and its cultural components .................... 7
1.4 Why do simple density models persist? ............................................................... 9
1.5 Indigenous people’s perceptions of crowding ..................................................... 10
1.5.1 The structure of ‘demand sharing’ ............................................................. 10
1.6 Research aims ................................................................................................... 11
1.7 Research methods ............................................................................................. 13
1.7.1 Stage 1: Literature analysis on Indigenous crowding ................................ 13
1.7.2 Stage 2: Empirical data collection on urban Indigenous crowding ............. 13
1.7.3 Crowding data sample .............................................................................. 15
1.7.4 Trial data collection using projective techniques ....................................... 18
1.7.5 Structure of study site chapters ................................................................. 18
2 THE STUDY SITES ........................................................................................... 20
2.1 Brief overview of Mount Isa ................................................................................ 20
2.1.1 Regional demography of North West Queensland .................................... 21
2.1.2 The Queensland Government housing program in Mount Isa ................... 22
2.1.3 Household size according to ABS Census ................................................ 23
2.1.4 Homelessness in Mount Isa ...................................................................... 23
2.1.5 Tenancy support services in Mount Isa ..................................................... 25
2.2 Brief overview of Inala ........................................................................................ 27
2.2.1 Inala’s Indigenous demography ................................................................ 28
2.2.2 Housing tenure in Inala ............................................................................. 29
2.2.3 Inala’s multi-cultural character................................................................... 30
2.3 Brief overview of Carnarvon ............................................................................... 31
2.3.1 Aboriginal housing history ......................................................................... 32
2.3.2 Demography ............................................................................................. 33
2.3.3 Contemporary Aboriginal housing ............................................................. 33
2.4 Brief overview of Swan ....................................................................................... 34
2.4.1 Demography ............................................................................................. 35
2.4.2 Contemporary housing profile ................................................................... 37
2.4.3 The ‘three strikes’ policy ............................................................................ 39
3 MOUNT ISA LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS ............................. 41
iv
3.1 Household profiles in the Mount Isa sample ....................................................... 41
3.1.1 Household expansion—origins of visitors .................................................. 48
3.1.2 Sociospatial principles of sleeping location ............................................... 56
3.1.3 Use of external spaces for sleeping and socialising .................................. 58
3.1.4 Perceived absence of stress by about half of interviewees ....................... 59
3.1.5 Issue of housing staff management of tenancies....................................... 61
3.1.6 Perceptions of stress by other interviewees .............................................. 61
3.1.7 Strategies used to cope when stressed ..................................................... 63
3.2 Neighbourhood stress problems ........................................................................ 66
3.2.1 Case of a high-density Aboriginal suburb .................................................. 66
3.2.2 A reverberating inter-family feud ............................................................... 68
3.3 Requests for physical improvements to cope ..................................................... 68
3.4 Summary of findings in Mount Isa ...................................................................... 69
4 INALA LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS ...................................... 72
4.1 Household profiles in Inala sample ..................................................................... 72
4.1.1 Household expansion—origins of visitors .................................................. 76
4.1.2 Sociogeographic exogamy ........................................................................ 78
4.2 Reasons for visiting causing household expansion ............................................ 79
4.2.1 Permeable houses .................................................................................... 80
4.2.2 Funerals and grieving ............................................................................... 81
4.2.3 Additional family obligations ...................................................................... 82
4.2.4 Housing shortage in Inala ......................................................................... 83
4.2.5 Stress and large numbers ......................................................................... 83
4.2.6 Visitor scale .............................................................................................. 84
4.2.7 Large household formation patterns .......................................................... 84
4.3 Sleeping arrangements principles ...................................................................... 85
4.4 Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees ........................................... 86
4.5 Causes of perceived stress by other interviewees .............................................. 90
4.6 Strategies used to cope when stressed .............................................................. 91
4.7 Neighbourhood stress problems ........................................................................ 91
4.8 Requests for physical improvements to cope ..................................................... 92
4.9 Summary of findings in Inala .............................................................................. 93
4.9.1 Background to visitation ............................................................................ 93
4.9.2 Large household formation patterns .......................................................... 94
4.9.3 Perceptions of stress caused by visitors ................................................... 94
4.9.4 Neighbourhood stress problems ............................................................... 95
5 CARNARVON LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS .......................... 96
5.1 Household profiles in the Carnarvon sample ...................................................... 96
5.1.1 Seasonality and variety of sleeping spaces ............................................. 101
5.2 Household expansion—origins of visitors ......................................................... 103
5.3 Reasons for household expansion ................................................................... 103
v
5.3.1 Mobility range and visitors ....................................................................... 103
5.3.2 Providing care to kin ............................................................................... 104
5.3.3 Temporary homelessness as a cause of taking in kinfolk ........................ 105
5.3.4 Returning after time away ....................................................................... 105
5.4 Instances of arranging sleeping space for funeral time ..................................... 105
5.5 Other large household formation patterns ........................................................ 106
5.5.1 Visiting within the town ............................................................................ 106
5.5.2 Daytime visiting ....................................................................................... 106
5.5.3 Drinking for celebration ........................................................................... 106
5.5.4 Circular mobility ...................................................................................... 107
5.6 Sleeping arrangement principles ...................................................................... 107
5.6.1 A case study in the distribution of sleeping space ................................... 108
5.7 Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees ......................................... 111
5.8 Further strategies used to cope when stressed. ............................................... 115
5.8.1 Re-organising sleeping arrangements ..................................................... 115
5.8.2 Growling at visitors .................................................................................. 115
5.8.3 Relieving crowding stress in kin-related households ............................... 115
5.9 Earlier phases of neighbourhood induced stress .............................................. 115
5.10 Physical needs and improvements to cope ...................................................... 116
5.11 Summary ......................................................................................................... 117
6 SWAN LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS .................................... 119
6.1 Household profiles in Swan sample ................................................................. 119
6.1.1 Provision of sleeping space .................................................................... 122
6.2 Household expansion—origin of visitors........................................................... 124
6.2.1 Where is home? ...................................................................................... 124
6.3 Reasons for household expansion ................................................................... 126
6.3.1 Mobility ................................................................................................... 126
6.3.2 Concept of the ‘accordion house’ ............................................................ 127
6.4 Large household formation patterns ................................................................. 128
6.4.1 Sleeping arrangement principles ............................................................. 128
6.5 Perceptions of stress........................................................................................ 130
6.5.1 Attitude toward crowding ......................................................................... 130
6.5.2 The ‘three strikes policy’ in Swan ............................................................ 131
6.5.3 Stress and large household numbers ...................................................... 131
6.6 Physical needs and improvements to cope ...................................................... 132
6.7 Summary ......................................................................................................... 136
7 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS ACROSS CASE STUDY SITES . 137
7.1 Research questions ......................................................................................... 137
7.2 Definitional note ............................................................................................... 137
7.3 Antecedent factors underlying and driving large household formation .............. 137
7.4 Externally imposed structural drivers as potential antecedent factors of crowding138
vi
7.4.1 Demographics and overall shortage of housing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people .............................................................................. 138
7.4.2 House size and infrastructure—inadequacy of conventional rental houses for large households ............................................................................... 139
7.4.3 Homelessness ........................................................................................ 140
7.5 Cultural drivers of large household formation as potential antecedent factors .. 142
7.5.1 Kin ties, visitation and desires for an immersive sociality ........................ 142
7.5.2 Demand sharing and mobility .................................................................. 143
7.5.3 Place attachments .................................................................................. 146
7.6 Cultural patterns of household expansion ........................................................ 147
7.7 Perceptions of stress and crowding by interviewees ........................................ 147
7.7.1 Findings on stress in general .................................................................. 147
7.7.2 Stress and large households ................................................................... 149
7.7.3 Loss of personal control as an antecedent factor that diminishes ability to cope with high numbers .......................................................................... 151
7.8 Mediating factors that prevent or alleviate stress .............................................. 152
7.8.1 Firm administration of house rules .......................................................... 152
7.8.2 Management of people within households .............................................. 153
7.8.3 Management of neighbourhood crowding ............................................... 154
7.8.4 Sociospatial principles in organising visitors, living at the limit of the rules154
7.8.5 Discerning rules from principles in managing sleeping space.................. 156
7.8.6 Final comment on Aboriginal kinship and household rules ...................... 158
7.9 A model of Indigenous crowding for Aboriginal Australia .................................. 158
7.10 Differences between the four case studies, metropolitan versus regional cities 159
7.11 Further factors influencing government perceptions of Indigenous crowding .... 161
8 POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS ......................................................... 162
8.1 National policy implications for crowding definition ........................................... 162
8.2 The Canadian National Occupancy Standard and the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Social Survey ............................................................................ 164
8.3 Housing management policy ............................................................................ 165
8.4 Homelessness policy ....................................................................................... 166
8.5 Child welfare and protection policy ................................................................... 167
8.6 House design and crowding ............................................................................. 168
8.7 Indigenous home-ownership policies ............................................................... 170
8.8 Summary on the policy impact of the research ................................................. 170
REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 172
APPENDIX ............................................................................................................... 181
AHURI Crowding Survey—Interview Schedule ......................................................... 181
vii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: The dwelling types occupied by the interviewees ........................................ 16
Table 2: Rental type and home ownership status of interviewees ............................. 16
Table 3: Tenants' knowledge of tenancy agreement and its household size
prescription ........................................................................................................ 17
Table 4: Tenants’ knowledge of numbers of co-residents prescribed in their tenancy
agreements ........................................................................................................ 17
Table 5: Population change in Mount Isa, 1976–2006 ............................................... 21
Table 6: Profile of Mount Isa households, 2006 Census ............................................ 23
Table 7: Homeless people in North West Queensland Statistical Division compared to
Queensland as a whole, 2006 ............................................................................ 24
Table 8: Inala population change, 1991–2006 ........................................................... 28
Table 9: Inala housing tenure .................................................................................... 30
Table 10: Ancestry of Inala and Forest Lake residents .............................................. 30
Table 11: Carnarvon population change, 1996–2006 ................................................ 33
Table 12: Swan SLA population change, 1996–2006 ................................................ 36
Table 13: Rental housing, home ownership and homes being purchased in Swan.... 38
Table 14: Swan Indigenous household percentages ................................................. 38
Table 15: Profile of sampled Mount Isa households—actual people present ............. 42
Table 16: Profile of sampled Mount Isa households—visitors present ....................... 43
Table 17: Sizes of Mount Isa households at time of interview, July 2010 .................. 44
Table 18: Sleeping arrangements described by Mount Isa interviewees, July 2011 .. 45
Table 19: Identified home community of interviewees ............................................... 48
Table 20: Household expansion with visitors—catalysing events recorded from the
previous year (may or may not be perceived as crowding) ................................. 50
Table 21: Indigenous-identifying people from selected 2006 Census data ................ 67
Table 22: Profile of sampled Inala households—actual people present ..................... 73
Table 23: Profile of sampled Inala households—visitors present ............................... 74
Table 24: Sizes of Inala households at time of interview ........................................... 75
Table 25: Inala households’ distribution of persons in sleeping places–August 2011,
December 2011 and January 2012 .................................................................... 76
Table 26: Identified home community of interviewees ............................................... 77
Table 27: Reasons for household visitation ............................................................... 80
Table 28: Profile of sampled Carnarvon households—actual people present in core
household (ages in brackets) ............................................................................. 97
Table 29: Total household numbers at time of interview including extended
family/visitors, August–September 2012 ............................................................ 98
viii
Table 30: Sizes of Carnarvon households at time of interviews, August–September
2012 ................................................................................................................... 99
Table 31: Carnarvon households’ distribution of persons in sleeping places–August
2011, December 2011 and January 2012 ........................................................ 102
Table 32: Identified home community of interviewees versus partners .................... 103
Table 33: Reason for visiting and the number of households for which this was
reported ........................................................................................................... 104
Table 34: Occasional perceived stress of Carnarvon interviewees arising from
expanded households ...................................................................................... 114
Table 35: Profile of Swan households that were sampled (ages in brackets)—people
in core household ............................................................................................. 120
Table 36: Extended family/visitors staying at the time of the interview together with
total numbers in household (core householders & visitors) ............................... 121
Table 37: Sizes of Swan households at time of interview, August–September 2011
and January 2012 ............................................................................................ 122
Table 38: Swan households’ distribution of persons in sleeping places, August 2011,
December 2011 and January 2012 .................................................................. 123
Table 39: Identified home community of Swan interviewees and their spouses or
partners ............................................................................................................ 125
Table 40: Average household sizes and persons per bedroom in each study site ... 139
Table 41: Perception of stress and crowding in case study sites ............................. 148
Table 42: Acceptable bedroom occupants as defined by the Canadian National
Occupancy Standard (CNOS) .......................................................................... 163
ix
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Integrative model of crowding ....................................................................... 8
Figure 2: Map of Australia showing locations of four study sites (1) Mount Isa (2) Inala,
Brisbane (3) Carnarvon (4) Swan, Perth ............................................................ 15
Figure 3: Indigenous people in Brisbane (2006) shown as percentage of the total
population in Statistical Local Areas* ................................................................. 29
Figure 4: Indigenous people in Perth (2006) shown as a percentage of the total
population in Statistical Local Areas, with study area of Swan SLA indicated ..... 37
Figure 5: Map of the ‘beats’ of the North West Queensland/Northern Territory border
region (by Long 2005, p.359) ............................................................................. 46
Figure 6: Mount Isa’s named suburbs and Census Collection Districts, coloured
according to per cent of Indigenous population. Numerals refer to numbers of
interviews in particular districts* ......................................................................... 47
Figure 7: Aboriginal tenant’s makeshift fence screens, Mount Isa—also note veranda
screen ................................................................................................................ 65
Figure 8: Aboriginal tenant’s fence screen, Mount Isa ............................................... 66
Figure 9: Tenant’s fence and veranda privacy screens, Mount Isa ............................ 66
Figure 10: Commercial privacy fence, Mount Isa ....................................................... 66
Figure 11: Map of home communities ....................................................................... 78
Figure 12: Example of sleeping arrangements in Inala, of a core (or base)
household—total of 10 ....................................................................................... 88
Figure 13: Example of sleeping arrangements in Carnarvon, adapted to accommodate
visiting kinspersons the week before Christmas—total of 20 .............................. 89
Figure 14: Mould on ceiling in Inala resident’s state government house, caused by
inadequate ventilation and poor construction ..................................................... 93
Figure 15: Plan of Carnarvon, Western Australia, showing location of the discrete
urban Aboriginal settlement, Mungullah. Numerals indicate number of interviews
carried out in those parts of the town ............................................................... 100
Figure 16: Map of Gascoyne region (green), Western Australia, showing location of
Carnarvon in relation to other Aboriginal population centres, from which visitors
may arrive ........................................................................................................ 101
Figure 17: Mungullah housing village, Carnarvon, Western Australia ...................... 109
Figure 18: Example of sleeping arrangements in Carnarvon, of a core (or base)
household—total of nine .................................................................................. 110
Figure 19: Example of sleeping arrangements in Carnarvon, adapted to accommodate
visiting kinspersons—total of 27 ....................................................................... 111
Figure 20: Access hole for King Brown snakes ....................................................... 116
Figure 21: South-West of Western Australia showing places identified by Swan
interviewees as ‘home’ community of self or spouse (with red dots) and indicating
the likely catchment of household visitors ........................................................ 126
Figure 22: Storage of mattress against the wall, for use by visiting kin in a household
in Swan ............................................................................................................ 169
x
ACRONYMS
ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics
AHURI Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Limited
AIHW Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
ATSI Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
ATSIC Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
CAEPR Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian
National University
CDEP Community Development Employment Projects
CHIP Commonwealth Housing Infrastructure Program
CNOS Canadian National Occupancy Standard
DAIA Department of Aboriginal and Islander Affairs (Queensland)
DCP Department of Child Protection (Western Australia)
DoH (WA) Department of Housing (Western Australia)
F Female
FaHCSIA Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and
Indigenous Affairs (Commonwealth)
KPI Key Performance Indicator
M Male
MRAC Murchinson Region Aboriginal Corporation
NPAAH National Partnership Agreement on Affordable Housing
NATSISS National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey
POS Proxy Occupancy Standard
QCOSS Queensland Council of Social Services
SAAP Supported Accommodation Assistance Program
SIHIP Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program
SLA Statistical Local Area
1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This AHURI project aimed to develop a model of Australian Aboriginal house
crowding, based on social science theories, and then refined through empirical
studies conducted in regional urban and state capital metropolitan areas, generating
useful findings for housing policy.
The case studies were conducted in Queensland and Western Australia in order to
gather comparative data with which to analyse crowding in Indigenous households.1
The model incorporates the lived experiences of Indigenous people including the
factors that cause, perpetuate and prevent crowding, and relates these to crowding
theory and policy implications.
This Research Project has two stages. The first stage was a literature analysis that
was reported in an earlier Positioning Paper (Memmott et al. 2011). The second stage
involved empirical research which took place in mid and late 2011, resulting in this
Final Report for AHURI. In our Positioning Paper, we examined social science
definitions and models of cross-cultural crowding, particularly those grounded in
environmental psychology and social anthropology theory.
The stage 2 research used the literature-based model of Indigenous crowding
developed within the Positioning Paper and refined it based on our research within
non-remote urban settings. Our research addressed the prescribed questions for this
study as outlined below.
1. What are the dimensions of crowding in Indigenous households?
2. How does this vary by tenure, dwelling type and geography?
3. What are the various drivers of crowding?
4. How do the drivers interact with housing variables?
5. How does crowding impact upon individuals and households?
6. At what point does crowding have negative consequences?
7. What strategies do Indigenous households employ to cope with crowding?
8. What are the policy and program implications of crowding for housing providers?
9. Are there design opportunities to build housing that can accommodate the high rate of mobility and visiting patterns of Indigenous people while maintaining high standards of living for permanent residents?
The case studies were selected to examine key concepts and theories applicable to
constructing a general model of household crowding for Indigenous communities,
while acknowledging that particular cultural and place factors are relevant for specific
communities, whether they be remote, rural urban or metropolitan.
Two suburbs within metropolitan centres were chosen for this study: Inala in Brisbane
and Swan in Perth; each has a substantial Indigenous resident population. In addition,
the two regional centres of Carnarvon and Mount Isa were selected as case study
sites, both of which have high Aboriginal populations and attract visitors or residents
from a regional catchment of remote communities that are characterised as having
strong customary traditions of residential behaviours. The four urban study sites were
1 We use the term Indigenous because our case study participants included a small number of Torres
Strait Islander people, and hence the term Aboriginal is not appropriate when we generalise to discuss the broader groups of study participants. When we frequently discuss matters that apply to Aboriginal people, which do not apply to Torres Strait Islander people, we use the term ‘Aboriginal’.
2
used during stage 2 to ensure a reasonable (although not necessarily equal) sample
of householders. Our primary criteria for selecting interviewees was a recent (past 12
months) experience of hosting large households, either in terms of a core household
or large numbers of visitors, or both.
The organisation of each of the four study site analyses that are contained in
Chapters 3–6 is in accordance with the following content structure:
Household profiles in sample.
Household expansion—origin of visitors.
Reasons for household expansion.
Large household formation patterns.
Sleeping arrangement principles.
Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees.
Perceptions of stress by other interviewees.
Strategies used to cope when stressed.
Neighbourhood stress problems.
Physical needs and improvements to cope.
Summary
Initially however, an introduction is provided in Chapter 2 to each of the four study
sites in order to sensitise on what structural drivers of crowding might be present and
how those may constitute or contribute to ‘antecedent factors’ in accordance with
Robert Gifford’s model of crowding.
The theory used to develop the crowding model is based on social science literature
that argues while stress can arise from large household numbers, density alone is not
the cause of crowding. This aligns with international models of crowding that have
developed significantly over the last four decades, in which crowding is no longer
conceptualised by researchers as simply high-density, nor is it assumed that stress
and annoyance will automatically arise in high-density situations. It is acknowledged
that some people in some high-density situations do not experience stress in relation
to high-density, but conversely that in some situations a high density of people is
desirable.
We devise our concept of what constitutes crowding primarily from the literature
review of crowding by environmental psychologist Robert Gifford (2007), drawing also
on an earlier review of the Australian Indigenous crowding literature by Memmott
(1991) and a recent audit of the Aboriginal housing literature by Long et al. (2007).
The model of crowding that we develop (see Figure 1) takes into account Gifford’s key
elements of crowding: loss of personal control, variable experiences of stress and
specific cultural components of crowding. Gifford’s model of crowding identifies
antecedent factors to crowding, responses to crowding and factors that mediate the
experience of crowding.
We then identify behaviours, attitudes and concepts from our case studies that give
life to this model, to develop an initial understanding of the kinds of situations in which
Aboriginal people feel crowded, the coping mechanisms that are utilised, and the
cultural factors influencing their threshold of when crowding occurs. We establish the
basic cross-cultural factors that drive these models, enabling us to evaluate them:
in relation to the crowding models currently in use in Australia
3
with regard to their policy application to household crowding in Australian Aboriginal communities.
We find a number of antecedent factors that influence people’s experience of
crowding particularly government policies and societal factors such as a shortage of
housing in Indigenous communities generally, the economical fragility of many
Indigenous families and communities, and the prevalence of both primary and
secondary homelessness among Indigenous people. Cultural drivers that influence
Aboriginal households to become large households included Indigenous people’s kin
ties and desire for an immersive sociality, women as frequent household heads, and
the cultural traits of demand sharing and mobility in Indigenous communities.
Culturally specific responses to large households included particular patterns of
expansion of households along kin and social lines, and varying perceptions of stress
when households did become large. Finally we were able to identify factors that
mediated stress relating to large household numbers including firm administration of
household rules, sharing visitors among nearby kin, and arranging people in culturally
appropriate groups for sleeping.
We discuss the policy implications that the case studies and analyses point to, and
areas for further research. These findings inform a more refined definition of
Aboriginal crowding for policy applications across all Australian jurisdictions, as well
as having relevance for other international jurisdictions with substantial Indigenous
populations (e.g. Canada & New Zealand). The research has implications for
government policies on Indigenous health, housing procurement, housing
management, homelessness, town planning and appropriate house design. We
provide policy-makers with an increased knowledge base from which to understand,
predict, measure, assess and manage Aboriginal household crowding.
The policy implications that we identify, and discuss in our recommendations, are that:
Crowding cannot be identified through density measures alone and further quantitative and qualitative investigation of crowding to understand local causes, effects and manifestations should be conducted prior to housing measures that address crowding.
Housing policies should recognise the importance of social and kin ties and the deep obligations to house kin that remain strong for many Indigenous people in urban areas (both regional cities & metropolitan areas). This may include the desire to be housed close to kin and one’s social groups which, in turn, build into strong place attachments even through people reside in rental housing.
Housing policies such as Western Australia’s ‘three strikes’ policy increase both large numbers in households as people lose their tenure, and stress, as those who are obliged to take these people as visitors worry over their own tenure if they breach permitted numbers. This should be addressed to reduce such a burden on householders.
Children and women require support through mechanisms that provide financial and housing stability where it is desired. Support for women in the face of domestic violence and financial distress would assist in this regard. Similarly support for those who have substance abuse, alcohol and violence problems can reduce stress and crowding.
Housing stock is usually designed for smaller nuclear families and is inadequate to
house large, extended and complex family structures typical of Indigenous
communities. Housing design should focus on the number of people housed, aligning
with sociospatial patterns of sleeping arrangements, and consider the large numbers
of people likely to inhabit one house. Provision of more bathrooms and larger kitchen
4
facilities, outdoor living and sleeping spaces and flexible internal spatial arrangement
would produce a better cultural fit and reduce both stress and household wear and
tear.
Mobility at scales from the regional to the suburban influenced the ways in which
households operated on a daily, weekly and longer-term basis. A rhythm of movement
locally over short periods was then scaled up to longer-term and long-distance
mobility. Key drivers of this are kin sociality, demand sharing, permeable households
and hub households, as defined earlier in this report.
A comparison of the variables between the four study sites, rather than highlighting
some definitive differences between regional cities and metropolitan suburbs, tells us
alternately that the combined variables of:
Ratio of Aboriginal residents to non-Aboriginal residents.
Ratio of public rental to non-public rental and private housing tenure.
Supportive versus punitive approaches to housing management which can generate crowding stresses of different sorts.
For example, a very high proportion of Aboriginal residents in public rental, as in
Pioneer in Mount Isa can result in neighbourhood crowding stress for Aboriginal
residents caused by other Aboriginal residents, whereas at a different extreme, a low
proportion of Aboriginal residents (albeit with high household numbers) living among
predominantly white people in private rental and freehold tenure, combined with a
punitive housing management policy (‘three strikes’) as in Swan, can result in a
different type of crowding stress, arising from the moral prerogative to house kin under
severe threat of instant eviction.
5
1 INTRODUCTION
This AHURI project aims to build a model of Australian Aboriginal house crowding,
then test and refine it empirically for urban and metropolitan areas, generating useful
findings for housing policy. The Final Report builds upon a detailed literature analysis
contained in the authors’ earlier AHURI Positioning Paper (Memmott et al. 2011).
This report uses case studies conducted in urban areas of Queensland and Western
Australia to analyse crowding in Indigenous households. We discuss the lived
experiences, theory and policy implications derived from a deeper understanding of
crowding and the factors that cause, perpetuate and prevent crowding.
We use the social science literature to derive a model of crowding that is based on the
stress that large numbers cause, rather than a model that relies upon density alone.
Internationally, models of crowding have developed and changed significantly over the
last four decades. Crowding is no longer conceptualised by researchers as simply
high-density, nor is it assumed that stress and annoyance will automatically arise in
high-density situations. There is acknowledgement that some people in some high-
density situations do not experience stress in relation to high-density, and that in
some situations a high density of people is desirable (cf. Proshansky et al. 1970;
Stokols 1972, 1976).
Based on our earlier Positioning Paper, we devise our concept of what constitutes
crowding primarily from the literature review of crowding by environmental
psychologist Robert Gifford (2007), drawing also on an earlier review of the Australian
Indigenous crowding literature by Memmott (1991) and a recent audit of the Aboriginal
housing literature by Long et al. (2007). The model of crowding that we develop (see
Figure 1) takes into account Gifford’s key elements of crowding: loss of personal
control, variable experiences of stress and specific cultural components of crowding
(Gifford 2007, pp.21, 145, 212).
We then test this model through the case studies, to develop an initial understanding
of the kinds of situations in which Indigenous people feel crowded, the coping
mechanisms that are used, and the cultural factors influencing their threshold of when
crowding occurs. We seek to establish the basic cross-cultural factors that drive these
models, enabling us to evaluate them:
in relation to the crowding models currently in use in Australia
with regard to their application to household crowding in Australian Aboriginal communities.
Finally, we discuss the policy implications that the case studies and analyses point to,
and areas for further research.
We use the term ‘Indigenous’ in this report because our case study participants
included a small number of Torres Strait Islander people, and hence the term
‘Aboriginal’ is not appropriate when we generalise to discuss the broader groups of
study participants. When we discuss matters that apply to Aboriginal people, which do
not apply to Torres Strait Islander people, we use the term ‘Aboriginal’.
1.1 Debunking density
Density is a measure of the number of individuals per unit area, whereas crowding
according to Gifford:
[It] refers to the person’s experience of the number of other people
around. Rather than a physical ratio, crowding is a personally defined,
6
subjective feeling that too many others are around. Crowding may
correspond to high density, but often the connection is not as strong as
one might think … Crowding is a function of many personal, situational,
and cultural factors. (Gifford 2007, p.192)
This definition emphasises the culturally-specific nature of crowding perception, also
acknowledged by Gillis et al. (1986), Chan (1999) and others. The determination of
what constitutes a ‘high-density’ situation for a particular group is thus a subjective
perception that is dictated by the group's implicit norms about the matter and its
recognition of the potential ‘crowding’ effects of such a state (Rapoport 1976:23). We
align with the majority of environmental psychologists to conceptualise crowding as an
interpretive, motivational state of which individuals are, for the most part, usually
aware. As Chan argues:
Firstly, crowding is a personal, subjective reaction, not a physical variable;
secondly, it is a motivational state that often results in goal-oriented
behaviour with which to alleviate discomfort; thirdly it centres on the
feeling of having or controlling too little space. (Chan 1999, pp.105–106)
It is important to note that cultural factors also influence the perception of the
converse psychological state of ‘isolation’, where desired social contact fails to be
achieved (Gillis et al. 1986, p.685). This is a key element of Indigenous culture that
has been absent from models of crowding and household utilisation in the past, and is
examined in more detail in the case studies, where we demonstrate the importance of
understanding this concept in relation to visiting relatives and large households.
Despite the social science definition of ‘crowding’, it is density measures that are
inherent in the calculation of crowding used by governments in Australia, for both
Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. These measures also determine, according to
tenancy agreements, the size of houses and maximum numbers of people that should
be accommodated, as well as how those houses should be occupied to be considered
not crowded.
1.2 Factors contributing to crowding
Summarising from our Positioning Paper, the literature suggests some keys factors
that contribute to crowding, beyond simply the density of people in dwellings. We
examine these here and will return to them in the case study analyses and policy
recommendations.
1.2.1 Loss of personal control
One key element of crowding is the loss of personal control over one’s circumstances.
This can be understood by the simple analogy of a party or a stadium event. The
choice to attend such an event involves a seeking of the experience of interaction,
group cohesion and heightened sensations. Those who do not enjoy such
experiences may indeed find them unpleasant and feel crowded. The loss of personal
control in relation to a household become problematic because there are usually few
other places that a person may be able to inhabit. Personal control is used by social
scientists examining crowding to encompass a range of meanings and notions,
including the individual's ability to control the occurrence of certain social experiences,
to maintain goals, to fulfil expectations, to obtain valued outputs from situations
despite annoying surroundings, or to be satisfied that the predictability of social and
environmental conditions is not threatened. Density of people becomes annoying or
stressful when it threatens, removes or reduces personal control and consequently
the outcome of desired types of behaviours (Baron & Rodin 1978; Insel & Lindgren
1978, p.21; Schmidt & Keating 1979; Schmidt 1983).
7
The environmental psychologist, Gifford, expands on the nature of personal control as
follows:
Personal control is an important component of crowding. A key aspect of
this is locus of control, the tendency of individuals to believe (or not) that
they exercise considerable influence over their own lives. Individuals who
believe this more (internals) generally have been found able to handle the
stress of crowding better than those who believe it less (externals),
although not every study supports this conclusion. (Gifford 2007, p.195)
The notion of personal control being limited in other aspects of people’s lives is an
important consideration to crowding in Indigenous households. While there may be
culturally specific notions of what constitutes satisfactory levels of personal control
over factors such as the number and composition of household residents, there may
also occur other more stressful events involving loss of personal control, such as
continual premature deaths in a family, social network or community, the financial loss
of control associated with unemployment, the experience of being a victim of domestic
or other violence, and so on, which all may of course add to the stress people feel,
and may contribute to a sense of crowding.
1.2.2 Variable experiences of stress
People living in the same environment may experience different levels of stress, and
hence crowding, because of individual factors, expectations and their response to that
particular environment. The perception that there is a high density of people
(compared to that desired) alongside the architectural design that may inhibit desired
behaviour, the presence of excessive noise or other undesired phenomena can make
a place feel crowded for a particular person. The person’s power to alter
circumstances also effects these perceptions of crowding, as those who are ‘in
charge’ may feel less stressed than those who may desire change but are unable to
implement it. Loo and Ong (1984) argue that sensory overstimulation leads to
environmental stress—for example, unwanted people staring or observing one
another, proximate arguments or fights, proximate sickness, unsanitary pollution and
smells, constant jostling and pushing, people being uncomfortably close, too many
strangers or unfriendly people, high frequency of localised crime, and a lack of
alternate settings into which to retreat (see also Six et al. 1983), and they argue that
even an individual alone in an unsatisfactory environment may feel crowded (Loo &
Ong 1984, p.12).
Zeedyk-Ryan & Smith (1983) add that the length of time of exposure to such
situations shapes feelings of crowding with Evans et al. further arguing that the effects
of crowding may take months to have an impact on residents (Evans et al. 2000,
p.210). Importantly though, stress may also be caused by a low density of people, or
isolation from those who one would like to be near. Both undesirably low and
undesirably high density living have been shown to increase the risk of mental
disorders, according to Gifford (2007, p.213).
1.3 Gifford’s integrative theory of crowding and its cultural components
Gifford synthesises the various factors that contribute to crowding into a single
integrative theory of crowding:
Certain personal, social, and physical antecedents lead to the experience
of crowding. Among these are a variety of individual differences, resource
shortages (behavior-setting theory), the number of other people nearby
(density-intensity & social physics theories), who those others are, and
8
what they are doing. Sensory overload and a lack of personal control are
psychological processes central to the experience of crowding. The
consequences of crowding include physiological, behavioural, and
cognitive effects, including health problems, learned helplessness, and
reactance. (Gifford 2007, p.217)
Figure 1: Integrative model of crowding
Source: Adapted from Gifford 2007, pp.195, 214, Fig. 7.12
As outlined in more detail in our Positioning Paper (Memmott et al. 2011), we have
adapted Gifford’s diagrammatic theoretical model to crowding as above (Figure 1), to
include the salient cultural factors in his discussion. We note that Gifford incorporates
culture into his crowding model in two places, first as antecedent factors that
contribute to the tendency of crowding to occur, e.g. the character of physical and
social settings, personal and group history; and second as mediating factors that
shape people’s responses to stress.
Antecedent cultural factors could include childhood conditioning and socialisation that
equip individuals to desire culturally specific levels of density and thus to deal with
density in different ways, according to different norms, in perceived high-density
situations. Thus Rapoport (1976, p.18) and others have argued that being with similar
9
people will decrease stress in potentially crowded circumstances. Kinship groups (e.g.
extended families, multiple family units) and other culturally homogenous groups are
most likely to be socially well-structured. (Memmott 1991, p.257)
Similarly, culturally informed mediating factors also affect how individuals react to
situations that are perceived to be stressful and crowded, and those factors drive
group sanctions over what is appropriate stress-avoidance behaviour. Gifford
discusses the operation of cultural factors in relation to crowding:
The consequences of crowding and high density depend in part on cultural
background. Culture acts as a moderating influence on high density,
sometimes providing its members with a shield against the negative effects of
high density and sometimes failing to equip them with effective means of
coping with high density. (Gifford 2007, p.21)
Cultural factors that affect Indigenous crowding both as antecedent and moderating
agents are analysed in the case studies herein and show that crowding is both
anticipated and moderated by particular cultural factors in many Indigenous people’s
experiences. We shall present this as a holistic influence on the perception of
crowding, requiring an analysis that searches beyond density alone and accounts for
surrounding influences including culture.
1.4 Why do simple density models persist?
While crowding and density are only weakly correlated (Gifford 2007, p.220; Evans et
al. 2000, p.207), density is still the preferred model of measuring and predicting
crowding for many Australian agencies. These density rules are based on cultural
norms that tend to assume a British model of culture and habitation of housing. These
are embedded in the Canadian National Occupancy Standard (CNOS) adopted by
Australian agencies to measure levels of crowding in households, based on norms of
sleeping and living in a British nuclear family culture. It is the CNOS that is used by
government, in conjunction with flawed methods of counting household occupation
that determine levels of crowding in Indigenous households (see Memmott et al.
2011).
Density models of crowding are used to assess which houses are crowded as well as
to plan for funding on new housing (Memmott et al. 2012 forthcoming). Models based
on density also influence architectural design of housing, with the provision of the
three-bedroom house still the most prevalent model, even in the most recent
construction of housing in remote Aboriginal communities (Davidson et al. 2011).
Housing for Indigenous people in urban areas tends to be within mainstream service
provision where again an assumed density and level of occupation of nuclear families
of a certain size drives the provision of three-bedroom houses as the norm.
Government agencies persist with density calculations and models despite their lack
of applicability to the diverse cultures within Australian communities. We presume that
given the large bureaucracies at work and the continued counting of people in
particular ways by the national Census, NATSISS and other instruments, density
calculations have become embedded in such a way that it becomes difficult to move
beyond the density orthodoxy. Currently there is no suitable replacement for density
calculations when there is a desire to measure crowding or improvements in
crowding. Nevertheless the persistence of the density orthodoxy hampers deeper and
more useful understandings of crowding, household use, and related issues of
homelessness and mobility. Acknowledgement of the limits of its usefulness would at
least give conceptual room for seeking more insightful understandings of the ways in
which Indigenous people actually occupy houses and their motivations for doing so.
10
1.5 Indigenous people’s perceptions of crowding
Again, drawing from our Positioning Paper, the Australian literature clearly establishes
that traditional Aboriginal crowding behaviours are culturally distinct, in line with the
international literature which posits crowding as a complex concept requiring further
investigation, particularly at the cross-cultural level of analysis. (Memmott et al. 2011,
ch.3)
Marked cross-cultural differences are noted in the international literature in the varied
social manifestations of crowding, but these are currently crudely modelled and
require further refinement for a culturally specific understanding of crowding.
The consequences of ongoing cultural change on Indigenous norms of crowding and
privacy in urban contexts are poorly understood, as is the impact of housing on such
norms. Although we can show anecdotally that the provision of Western European
style housing has wrought change in the way all Australian Indigenous families and
groups now react to and deal with crowding and privacy, this has not yet been
systematically demonstrated through published case study analysis. Our case study
analysis addresses this lack of primary research. Obviously substantial further
research is required to fill out the above model in relation to Aboriginal groups with
varying histories of change, before any specific crowding metric can be developed for
Indigenous communities. In the meantime it certainly cannot be assumed that high
household densities regarded as 'crowded' by non-Aboriginal standards are
necessarily perceived as being stressful by Aboriginal groups (Memmott 1991, p.262).
Several known factors, in Gifford’s parlance ‘antecedent factors’, that have informed
our case study design include cultural norms on the juxtaposition of inappropriate
types of relatives in sleeping and living spaces (thereby breaking avoidance rules),
issues of residential mobility, ‘demand sharing’ (see further on this below), power
relationships and traditional authority (Memmott et al. 2011, p.40). Additionally the
concept of appropriate levels of companionship and sleeping intimacy, as discussed
by Musharbash (2008), are incorporated into our case study analysis.
With these known factors in mind, we examine the usefulness of existing models of
crowding such as the most commonly cited measure, the Canadian National
Occupancy Standard (CNOS) (ABS 2008) and the less commonly used Proxy
Occupancy Standard (POS) (AIHW 2005) that are typically used by Australian public
housing providers and planners. While certain Indigenous households may indeed be
crowded, as we shall demonstrate herein, we seek to determine whether the provision
of housing and tenancy rules to the standards prescribed in the CNOS would alleviate
such crowding, or whether other types of household use are preferred, and if so, what
these might be.
1.5.1 The structure of ‘demand sharing’
The concept of ‘demand sharing’ in anthropology was developed originally by
Peterson (1993), partly based on the work carried out by Hiatt (1982) and Sahlins
(1972). Peterson asks the question: ‘Why do recipients often have to demand
generosity?’(1993, p.860), noting that it is a widespread phenomenon in Australia. He
points out that this is about ‘relatedness and about how we construct and represent
social relations in small-scale societies’.
The injunction to look after one another, including providing a visitor with
accommodation in one’s house, is not based on altruism as such, although one would
not deny that this is involved. What is being expressed here is the right to ask, not the
obligation to offer. The meanings of rights and obligations are therefore in direct
opposition to the understandings of Anglo-Australian society. In Aboriginal society
11
kinfolk are often not invited. Instead, when kinfolk descend on a household asking for
accommodation they can do so because of the logic of the meta-principle involving
reciprocal rights and obligations. The answer to the request may not necessarily be
‘yes’, but the right to ask is perfectly legitimate.
Under what circumstances might householders say ‘no’ to such requests? As
Peterson notes, it is very difficult to deny such a request if it comes from kinfolk in an
appropriate relation to oneself. It is vitally important for a host kinsperson that every
effort is made to avoid denying such a request. One can make it impossible to
accede, but one does not say ‘no’. For example, one way of denying a request for
accommodation is to declare the house to be full. Clearly however, this is not just a
matter of household density. Depending on the age, gender, and status of the
individual, there may be no place to put them that would not contravene the principles
surrounding decency in the regional Aboriginal society. As will be amplified later in this
report, the principle guiding household arrangements of persons is that the age,
gender and status of the occupants of a sleeping space must not be in conflict
because to allow this to happen can lead to situations in which people are shamed.
This is a very powerful trope in Aboriginal society. It is a means of maintaining social
control and when invoked, the situation can become physically dangerous to the
members of the household.
Occasionally, the status of the person requesting accommodation is so high that the
request cannot be refused. In such circumstances, although the householder may
already have up to 20 people in their household (e.g. on the occasion of a funeral),
she (or he) will move people out of rooms and into public space in order to maintain
the respect that the high status individual has the right to be given. Those who are
moved out of the room may decide that the house is now too full and leave, but they
have never been told to go. Their sleeping arrangements have simply been
downgraded. (Birdsall 1990)
1.6 Research aims
Our primary research aim is to build an Indigenous model of crowding, initially based
on literature analysis, and then to test its veracity and application to Indigenous
crowding in regional urban and metropolitan settings, and in so doing uncover salient
dimensions and properties of Aboriginal crowding to see how different tenures impact
on distinctly Aboriginal rule-governed behaviours and coping mechanisms. These
findings seek to inform refined definitions of Aboriginal crowding for policy applications
across all Australian jurisdictions as well as to have relevance for other international
jurisdictions with substantial Indigenous populations (e.g. Canada & New Zealand).
The research findings will also have implications for government policies on
Indigenous health, housing procurement, housing management, homelessness, town
planning and appropriate house design. We aim to provide policy-makers with ways to
understand, predict, measure, assess and manage Aboriginal household crowding.
The case studies are selected with the objective of discovering key concepts and
theories involved in constructing a model of household crowding applicable to
Indigenous communities in general, while acknowledging the cultural and
environmental specificities of the various settings where Indigenous people live,
whether they be remote, rural urban or metropolitan.
Although there are many passing references and comments in the literature to
Aboriginal household crowding (see references in Long et al. 2007, pp.15–16, 39–42),
there has been no recent systematic attempt to critically examine these dispersed
observations and findings in order to integrate them into a synthesised model of
12
crowding that also draws on established social science models of crowding used for
different cultures (e.g. the Chinese).
One of the crucial deficiencies in the existing research base on Australian Aboriginal
household crowding is that, although it was easy to source statistical analysis of
‘overcrowding’, and despite the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW)
acknowledgement that perceptions of crowding are subject to ‘cultural norms’, there
were no significant empirical studies of Australian Indigenous perceptions of crowding.
Such perceptions should be considered an essential sub-theme of crowding research.
Until the necessary empirical perceptual studies are carried out, the distinction
between ‘crowding’ and occupation density remains methodologically flawed. A
secondary aim of this research is to introduce and to maintain the distinction between
crowding and occupation density as a matter of consistency, logic, and the proper
recognition of the function of culture in the development of a crowding model.
It should also be noted that we employ the term ‘crowding’ throughout this report in
preference to ‘overcrowding’, despite the prevalence of the latter in the Australian
policy literature; this is in line with international social science usage and avoids the
inherent tautology of the concept ‘overcrowding’.
Another point on the terminology used throughout this report concerns the use of the
terms ‘emic’ and ‘etic’. These terms generally distinguish the understanding of cultural
representations from the point of view of a native of the culture (emic), from the
understanding of cultural representations from the point of view of an outside observer
of the culture (etic), particularly that of the Western social scientist (Barfield 1997,
p.148). We shall use the terms ‘etic’ and ‘emic’ from time to time to make the fine
distinction between particular crowding concepts. The ‘etic’ use of ‘crowding’ will be in
accordance with the social scientific model of crowding as outlined in this chapter and,
by definition, incorporates a state of being stressed. The ‘emic’ use of the term
‘crowded’ will be that provided by our interviewees, who it will be seen, will sometimes
include a state of being stressed in the way they use the word, but in other cases they
may not.
Throughout this document, we make reference to housing policies in order to describe
the impacts that such policies are having on public housing tenants and we therefore
draw the reader’s attention to policies that householders chose to discuss while being
interviewed. While most tenants had general comments about the constraints and
difficulties of complying with housing policies (such as numbers of residents permitted
in a house), the Swan (WA) case study clients singled out the ‘three strikes policy’ of
managing disruptive behaviour as particularly onerous, although this was not
mentioned as a problem by the Carnarvon (WA) interviewees. This may be due to the
particularly clear and distinct promotion of the ‘three strikes’ policy to both tenants and
the public, with people in the more racially mixed Swan area worried about neighbours
being able to affect their tenancy through this policy. The effect of particular policies
and how they are implemented on the ground are discussed for each case study site,
and in the conclusion more generally.
The ultimate focus of the current AHURI study is that of Indigenous communities in
urban settings, that is, the capital cities and the large towns that function as regional
centres. However, in the context of our Positioning Paper (Memmott et al. 2011), we
included existing studies of remote and very remote Aboriginal communities, together
with those from urban centres, partly because of the paucity of previous studies on
this topic, but also in order to demonstrate that the development of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander understandings of crowding are part of the deep structures of
Indigenous cultures across both remote and non-remote settings (after Sutton 2003).
13
1.7 Research methods
This Research Project has had two stages. The first stage was a literature analysis,
which was reported in our earlier Positioning Paper (Memmott et al. 2011). The
second stage involved empirical research, which took place in mid and late 2011, and
analysis of those case study findings that resulted in this Final Report for AHURI.
1.7.1 Stage 1: Literature analysis on Indigenous crowding
In our Positioning Paper (Memmott et al. 2011), we examined social science
definitions and models of cross-cultural crowding, particularly those grounded in
environmental psychology and social anthropology theory. A review was also made of
recent, pervasive density-based standards of crowding used widely by government
policy-makers, such as the Canadian National Occupancy Standard. In contrast we
analysed the social sciences models, which emphasised the perceived loss of
personal control as a prerequisite of crowding, and held that the cause of such loss
may vary cross-culturally (such as perceived stressful density), as will behavioural
norms and rules for minimising such stress. Models also differentiate between
different scales of crowding (e.g. room crowding, house crowding and neighbourhood
crowding).
The Australian social anthropology literature on crowding is strongest regarding
remote Aboriginal settlement settings, and our preliminary model as developed in our
Positioning Paper did have an inevitable bias in this regard, but one that was
unavoidable due to the relative lack of research in urban settings (although see most
recently Birdsall-Jones & Corunna et al. 2010). Empirical research in Stage 2, based
in urban towns and cities, has aimed to redress this bias in our findings. The literature
analysis also draws on the unpublished findings and reflections of the two senior
researchers, Memmott and Birdsall-Jones, on Indigenous crowding, based on
extensive lifelong field experiences in Aboriginal Australia, as well as on the personal
experiences of our two Aboriginal researchers, Go-Sam and Corunna, who have
grown up in Aboriginal households in North East Queensland and South Western
Australia respectively.
1.7.2 Stage 2: Empirical data collection on urban Indigenous crowding
The stage 2 research used the literature-based model of Indigenous crowding
developed within the Positioning Paper and tested it for non-remote urban settings
(ABS 2001), first, to refine the application of the model for use in metropolitan and
urban settings and second, to address the prescribed set of detailed research
questions for this study as outlined below.
What are the dimensions of crowding in Indigenous households?
How does this vary by tenure, dwelling type and geography?
What are the various drivers of crowding?
How do the drivers interact with housing variables?
How does crowding impact upon individuals and households?
At what point does crowding have negative consequences?
What strategies do Indigenous households employ to cope with crowding?
What are the policy and program implications of crowding for housing providers?
Are there design opportunities to build housing that can accommodate the high rate of mobility and visiting patterns of Indigenous people while maintaining high standards of living for permanent residents? (Memmott et al. 2011).
14
Two suburbs within metropolitan centres were chosen for this study: Inala in Brisbane
and Swan in Perth; each has a substantial Indigenous residency. In addition, the two
regional centres of Carnarvon and Mount Isa were selected as case study city sites,
both of which have high Indigenous residency rates and attract visitors or residents
from a regional catchment of remote communities that are characterised as having
strong customary traditions of residential behaviours. The four urban study sites were
used during stage 2 to ensure a reasonable (although not necessarily equal) sample
of householders. We originally aimed to sample large households across public
housing rental, private rental and home-owner categories.
The four study sites were narrowed down for selection from the team’s working
knowledge of all capital city metropolitan sites and regional city sites in Australia. A
key reason for selecting the four sites was prior in-depth experience of at least one of
the research team at each site with known contacts among Aboriginal ‘gate-keeper’
organisations. Other sites were considered but for one reason or another deemed not
suitable at the time. For example, Broome was not feasible despite our early attempts,
because of Kimberley Land Council surveys being simultaneously conducted there by
CAEPR researchers from ANU.
Cultural factors contributing to crowding were explored, including mobility and
migration patterns. A principal aim was to identify Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
understandings and constructs of what constitutes crowding. These findings will be
built into a model of Indigenous crowding in Chapter 7. The main data collection
technique to ensure cross-site comparative analysis was a structured interview in
conjunction with a survey instrument (see Appendix). However it was conducted using
a semi-structural approach so that interviewees could elaborate on the issues of large
households.
Our primary criterion for selecting interviewees was their recent experience over the
previous year of hosting large households. Access to such Indigenous households
was enhanced not only by the prior experiences of the researchers working in the
selected study sites, but by the assistance of Aboriginal fieldworkers who assisted in
locating suitable interviewees, facilitating introductions and helping with
communication problems. Mr Keith ‘Kung’ Marshall took this role in Mount Isa, Ms
Patricia Conlon in Inala and Ms Vanessa Corunna in Western Australia. The survey
thus involved a targeted sample of interviews (not a random sample).
15
Figure 2: Map of Australia showing locations of four study sites (1) Mount Isa (2) Inala,
Brisbane (3) Carnarvon (4) Swan, Perth
1.7.3 Crowding data sample
We aimed to carry out a total of 70–80 householder interviews distributed across the
four sites. A total of 70 interviews were actually carried out, with 34 in regional cities
and 36 in metropolitan settings (see Table 1). However more interviews were
achieved in Queensland (39) than in Western Australia (31).
Note that the individual interviewees are identified with a code number in this report,
using prefix letters to indicate the study sites of Mount Isa, Inala, Carnarvon and
Swan, hence M.I.16, IN8, C4, S13 by way of example.
In Inala and Swan, the dispersed nature of Indigenous residence within the suburb
meant that a known local person was required as a research assistant to locate and
negotiate with householders prior to their participation. While this was a very
successful technique, it relied on the availability of this research assistant, which was
not always achievable due to unforeseen personal and community events, such as
significant deaths that required attendance to funerals. This also affected participants
who were often not available for interview during times of community sorry business.
Similar circumstances occurred for the Carnarvon situation where the field assistant
unexpectedly left for Alice Springs during the fieldwork period.
16
Additionally, in Inala some prospective participants were willing to discuss crowding,
but unwilling to have their homes used in the study, not wanting to be scrutinised by
researchers or to have their homes ‘judged’ and they declined to participate, on good
terms. While participants were generally satisfied with agreements of confidentiality
about their identity, some people stressed throughout interviews that ‘you can’t tell
[Department of] Housing about this’, thereby indicating a continuing anxiety about how
many people are housed and the intrusion of housing providers into these
arrangements, that is felt by tenants.
Table 1: The dwelling types occupied by the interviewees
2
One was in a townhouse and the other was living in a shed.
Where possible, some variation of house type was also sought in the study, for
example detached dwelling, town house, flats. This was also not readily achieved with
most interviewees being in detached dwellings due to the profile of the housing stock
in our study sites.
Table 2: Rental type and home ownership status of interviewees
Difficulties were also experienced in obtaining the ideal sample of interviewee
households in all study sites. Whereas there was no difficulty in locating households
according to the criteria of large households, those whom our Aboriginal field
assistants selected for us were largely in detached rental housing, especially state
government rental housing as indicated by the tables above. Few interviewees were
located in duplexes, flats or other dwelling types, nor many in non-ATSI social
housing, private owner rental, or self-owned houses.
The maximum diversity was in Swan where there were a total of four living in other
than state government rental. All of these were living in detached housing rented from
Foundation Housing Ltd., which has a housing stock of over 1000, both in the
metropolitan area and across the state (Foundation Housing 2008), albeit not
exclusively ATSI social housing. Foundation Housing is generally regarded by tenants
as better quality than Western Australian Department of Housing (DoH(WA)) housing,
but it is also somewhat more expensive.
17
In Mount Isa, Aboriginal consultants and interviewees were not able to elicit any
Indigenous people in private rental or self-owned housing who received regular
visitors. One householder (M.I.5) had two brothers who each owned houses, but only
one was said to allow a limited number of in-laws from Dajarra to stay. Neither were
large households.
In Inala there was more success in finding private rental households who received
visitors, but these were still in the tiny minority. This does reflect the demographics of
the suburb and the nature of the concentration of Indigenous government rental
residence in this area. There was only one home-owner interviewed in Inala, and this
house was a large household that had a multi-generation family living in it (IN8). The
householder was due to finish paying off the mortgage in 2012 and was contemplating
purchasing another house for her children to occupy.
Our interviewees were generally found to be aware that they had a tenancy
agreement, but did not know the specifics on whether there was a maximum
household size clause in their agreement, or, if there was, how many people were
prescribed who could stay in their house.
Table 3: Tenants' knowledge of tenancy agreement and its household size prescription
Table 4: Tenants’ knowledge of numbers of co-residents prescribed in their tenancy
agreements
18
1.7.4 Trial data collection using projective techniques
Two projective techniques were trialled in the data collection process to establish their
usefulness for future studies of this kind.
Use of the house drawing method
This technique was tried in the Carnarvon and Swan interviews. The researcher
requested that each interviewee draw a floor plan of their house. Apart from the
interest that lies in the drawing themselves, this method helped discussion about the
house in real terms. It was possible to name each room according to its use with focus
on sleeping space and to obtain accurate information regarding who slept where.
Often each bedroom was given a name such as ‘my son George’s room’, or ‘the girls’
room’. Discussion then occurred whether or not the residents of the rooms changed
as visitors came and went, and how this was important to understandings of the
dynamic use of sleeping space. The occupants of some rooms in some households
never changed while others changed frequently. Although there were limits to this
method, it made it possible to ask direct questions concerning the sorting and re-
integration of people into ‘sleeping groups’ for each sleeping space in the
circumstances of the arrival of visitors and large household formation.
Simulated visitor event game
A methodological issue that required a solution was that, although a great deal of data
was gathered in the course of the formal interview process, some of the answers to
questions such as ‘where will you put all these people’ received an answer such as
‘we’ll fit them in somehow, don’t worry’. Even when the answer was more specific it
was difficult to ascertain whether a principle of social organisation was being stated or
a rule derived from such a principle. To this end an experimental data gathering
technique was carried out in Carnarvon, which permitted householders to show the
researcher dynamically how people were allocated sleeping spaces. This was a
simple process of providing an outline floor plan of the dwelling and providing the
householder with game pieces, such as chess or checkers pieces, to represent
individuals needing sleeping space. By this means, the researcher could forensically
question the actual process of making these decisions.
1.7.5 Structure of study site chapters
The organisation of each of the four study site analyses that follow in Chapters 3–6, is
in accordance with the following content structure:
Household profiles in sample.
Household expansion—origin of visitors.
Reasons for household expansion.
Large household formation patterns.
Sleeping arrangement principles.
Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees.
Perceptions of stress by other interviewees.
Strategies used to cope when stressed.
Neighbourhood stress problems.
Physical needs and improvements to cope.
Summary.
19
Initially however, an introduction is provided in Chapter 2 to each of the four study
sites in order to sensitise on what structural drivers of crowding might be present and
how those may constitute or contribute to ‘antecedent factors’ in accordance with
Gifford’s model.
20
2 THE STUDY SITES
The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of relevant aspects of history,
demography, housing and culture in each of the four study sites of Mount Isa, Inala,
Carnarvon and Swan respectively in order to elicit salient antecedent factors
according to the earlier prescribed model of crowding.
2.1 Brief overview of Mount Isa
Rich deposits of silver-lead were discovered at Mount Isa in 1923 and within a year
the mine was established and the town surveyed (Blainey 1970, p.157). Three years
later the population was 3000. The mill and smelter were completed in 1931, but the
mine struggled economically and did not boom until the late 1940s. By 1955, Mount
Isa Mines (today called Xstrata) was the largest mining company in Australia. It is
known from oral history that a small Aboriginal population became established in
Mount Isa from its outset, including members of the local traditional owners, the
Kalkadoon tribe. They provided services to the mining, exploration and pastoral
industries.
The intense growth led to Mount Isa eclipsing Cloncurry as the regional centre for
North West Queensland, for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people alike. Mount
Isa became a holiday or recreational destination for many Aboriginal people in the
region and an employment centre for some. In the early 1970s it provided a range of
unique facilities for the surrounding region, including several bars and cafes, a ‘late
night spot’, a supermarket, and the popular annual rodeo, which was the largest in
Australia. Even then, most Aboriginal visitors from the region’s communities had some
sort of kinship tie to at least one or more Aboriginal person in Mount Isa with whom
they could stay.
In the early 1970s the Mount Isa Town Camp on the southern edge of the city
contained about 100 people living in humpies and tin sheds and came to be known as
‘Yallambee’. This Camp was distinctive in that it contained designated places for the
many visiting campers from the respective communities of the region. Thus there was
a place for ‘the Boulia mob’, ‘the Dajarra mob’, ‘the Camooweal mob’, ‘the
Burketown/Doomadgee mob’, ‘the Mornington Island mob’, etc. The Yallambee Camp
thus functioned as a regional settlement with residents from numerous language and
community groups organised in a socio-spatial structure2. By the mid-1970s there was
a Lake Nash householder in Yallambee who for a period was one of the Camp
leaders.
While the Camp acted as a gateway to Mount Isa for many Aboriginal visitors, rental
housing had begun to be provided for Aborigines in Mount Isa from 1969 as part of a
State/Commonwealth housing agreement, and was administered by the Queensland
Department of Aboriginal Islander Affairs (DAIA) as an instrument of their assimilation
policy. Houses were initially purchased to create a ‘scatterisation’ effect, aimed at
juxtaposing whites and blacks and breaking down Aboriginal enclaves and hence
Aboriginal identity. In later years this housing stock was to be transferred for the
administration of the Queensland Department of Housing but remained identified as
‘ATSI housing’ exclusively for the use of Indigenous tenants, despite subsequent
mainstreaming policies. Notwithstanding these assimilation efforts, the Yallambee
Town Camp remained a popular low-cost residential enclave. Most of the town camp
2 The division of a settlement into spatial zones in this manner, each occupied by an aggregate of
domiciliary groups possessing a common and distinct social and geographic identity is termed a ‘sociospatial structure’ (Memmott 1983; 1990)
21
humpies were removed after Mount Isa Mines donated a number of second-hand
fibro-clad bungalows in c.1973–74 (which were later upgraded to houses3).
Relaxation of the Queensland Aboriginal Act after 1970 brought more widespread
freedom of movement of people within the North West Queensland region. Combined
with the advent of welfare payments, pensions and unemployment benefits, Aboriginal
people participated more centrally in the mainstream economy. Aboriginal families
purchased second-hand cars for local travel and hunting. The various travel
restrictions in North West Queensland broke down further during the 1980s, with
increased cash acquisition and vehicle ownership among Aboriginal people, as well
as improved roads and a relaxation and disappearance of the provisions of the Act
when it was phased out. A pattern of circular mobility became more pronounced.
Despite these changes, a regional pattern of Aboriginal lifestyle in North West
Queensland has persisted (Memmott 1996, p.32; Long 2005).
2.1.1 Regional demography of North West Queensland
Population estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population of Mount
Isa became available from the 1976 Census (1544 persons). Each successive
consensus up to 2006 has indicated varying Aboriginal population growth of between
two and 800 individuals, with the latter maximum increase occurring between the
1981 and 1986 Census. In the 30-year period from 1976–2006, the Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander population has doubled from 1544–3267. This is despite
substantial drop-off of the non-Indigenous population in response to shifts in global
metal prices and associated mining employment (Table 5). In 2006 the Indigenous
population was 16.6 per cent of the overall city population (or 1 in 6).
Table 5: Population change in Mount Isa, 1976–2006
Sources: Memmott et al. 2006, p.14; Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007h
Overall, the North West Queensland region has grown to have an estimated total
population of approximately 34 000, with Mount Isa having by far the largest
population of around 21 000 (QCOSS 2011, p.3). The next largest town, Cloncurry,
had about 2500 people whereas 4 other settlements had in the range of 1000–1750,
viz. the town of Normanton and Hughenden and the discrete Aboriginal settlements
(ex. Missions) of Doomadgee and Gununa (Mornington Island).
Migration of Aboriginal people into Mount Isa from these smaller centres in the North
West Queensland region and also the Central East Northern Territory has been
gradual and incremental in the last 40 years. Reasons why Aboriginal people have
moved to Mount Isa include: medical reasons, family needs (to be closer to family
members), seeking secondary and tertiary education, seeking better services and
facilities and to escape from other adverse circumstances in home communities
3 At the time of the study, Yallambee had nine detached houses and one set of duplex (total of 11
residences)
22
(Memmott et al. 2006, pp.64–65). Over the last ten years, Queensland Department of
Housing officers have observed a pattern of gradual in-migration from Alpurrurulam
(formally Lake Nash pastoral settlement), Tennant Creek, Katherine, Doomadgee and
Gununa (Mornington Island) to Mount Isa. Growth periods in Mount Isa’s mining
economy have also attracted an increasing number of Aboriginal people from east
coast population centres, particularly from North and Central Queensland, albeit still a
minority in Mount Isa.
Circular mobility within the North West region has always been high since the old
Aboriginal Act was phased out, and includes regular, temporary or seasonal
movement to Mount Isa. Reasons for such movements included travel to Mount Isa
for the Rodeo and the Royal Show (some people stay a few days, some stay a bit
longer), for intra-regional football games, to avoid trouble in their home community
and just to ‘see the bigger world’. People who came into Mount Isa initially stayed in
the houses of family, camped in the Leichhardt River bed or used the residential
facility of the Jimaylya Topsy Harry Centre, see later profile (Memmott et al. 2006,
p.65). Fortunately an in-depth study of circular mobility within the North West region
was carried out previously for AHURI and informs this study (Memmott et al. 2006).
Also see Figure 5 in Chapter 3.
This background to Aboriginal in-migration and regional circular mobility provides
insights to the origin of visiting kin in the contemporary large households of Mount Isa.
2.1.2 The Queensland Government housing4 program in Mount Isa
North West Queensland households are broken down across tenures in a
substantially different way to the rest of Queensland, with fewer owners and
purchasers and more renters, particularly those renting from the state government
and community organisations (QCOSS 2011, p.7). This is partly explained by the
transient nature of the mining population.
At the time of writing this report, there were two types of government housing
programs provided by the Mount Isa Housing Service Centre of the Queensland
Department of Housing and Public Works. The first was public rental housing (a stock
of about 590 dwelling units), also known as ‘RGS’ (rental general stock); and the
second was the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) rental housing (a stock of
about 395 units). The latter is (as was mentioned previously) a specific program for
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, many of whom, it has been found, prefer to
stay within this program rather than move into the public housing sector.
Nevertheless, the objective of the ATSI housing program has been to provide a
standard of housing that is equal to that of the general community.
Due to the introduction of the One Social Housing policy the Mount Isa Housing
Service Centre is unable to provide wait-list times as clients are housed according to
their need. An increase in demand for private rentals due to the expansion of mining
operations and an influx of mine workers has placed pressure on access to houses in
both the Aboriginal and public rental sector. It cost $450–5505 per week rent for a
three-bedroom house in the private sector whereas the Department’s Housing Service
Centre weekly rent charge is significantly lower. The exact figure of the rent charged
varied between suburbs for a week’s rent of a three-bedroom house. Aboriginal
access to private sector housing was restricted by very high rents in response to
4
This profile was largely prepared from information provided by the Housing Manager, Mt Isa, Queensland Department of Housing in October 2004 and updated in successive years, most recently in April 2012 by the Acting Manager of the Housing Service Centre, by then in the Department of Housing and Public Works. 5 See North West Star, newspaper 9 March 2012, pp.1,3
23
mining booms as well as by landlords with less tolerance of cross-cultural residential
behaviours, such as a preference to sleep outside. Although the Housing Service
Centre personnel have more tolerance of such domiciliary behaviour, they
nevertheless receive complaints about such and take action accordingly.
In April 2012, there were 243 people on the waiting list for public housing in Mount Isa
of whom 151 were of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity. However, there
were only about 46 vacancies, consisting of 24 vacancies in the public housing sector
and 22 vacancies in the ATSI housing sector. Thus, only a maximum of about 20 per
cent of the applicants could be serviced. The process of fitting the applicants’
household size needs to the bedroom numbers in the available housing stock may
have reduced this potential service percentage down a little further.
2.1.3 Household size according to ABS Census
Table 6 indicates the contrast in recorded household structures between Indigenous
and non-Indigenous residents in Mount Isa. Non-Indigenous households are mostly
small in size with almost 60 per cent of them being one or two-person households and
only 2.6 per cent of them having six or more persons. However Indigenous household
sizes are more evenly distributed across all size categories, peaking with 18 per cent
of households having six or more usual residents. Note that another ABS Table (2007,
p.120) indicates that in 2006, Mount Isa had 14 Indigenous families recorded with 10
or more usual residents, whereas there were no non-Indigenous households in this
category. These figures indicate that large households, in which one might expect to
find crowding, are relatively common in Mount Isa.
Table 6: Profile of Mount Isa households, 2006 Census
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007, Table I22
2.1.4 Homelessness in Mount Isa
In 2006, Indigenous people categorised as ‘homeless’ in North West Queensland
numbered 128 persons. The non-Indigenous homeless people (some 512 persons)
were largely in the secondary homelessness category and staying with friends and
relatives and in boarding houses, but the Indigenous homeless people were largely in
the ‘improvised dwelling’ category (i.e. primary homelessness), which included rough
sleeping in the Leichhardt River bed in Mount Isa (see Table 7).
Elsewhere we have argued that the extent of secondary homelessness in Indigenous
households is severely masked by the application of the ABS definition of
householders by excluding those for whom the house is not their ‘usual place of
address’ (‘usual place of residence’ is defined as the place where a person lives or
24
intends to live for s months or more) (Memmott et al. forthcoming 2012b). Therefore
the figures in Table 7 for Indigenous people residing with friends and relatives, is in
our view, a severe under-count. This will be verified in the interview data later.
Table 7: Homeless people in North West Queensland Statistical Division compared to
Queensland as a whole, 2006
Source: Chamberlain and MacKenzie 2009, p.10
There are a number of services in Mount Isa established to respond to the needs of
Aboriginal people living in public places (rough sleepers), people at risk of
homelessness, and people without safe or secure shelter of their own. These services
provide responses to both Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients, but mainly
Indigenous people from Mount Isa and other remote discrete settlements and rural
towns in the North West Queensland region and adjacent parts of the Northern
Territory. These services include:
The Arthur Peterson Centre, an overnight shelter used by people who spend their days socialising and drinking in public places.
The Jimaylya (Topsy Harry) Centre, a residential facility for homeless people over the age of 18, with alcohol management and a program of transitional accommodation with final placement in public rental town housing.
The Kalkadoon Aboriginal Sobriety House (KASH), which runs an alcohol rehabilitation program (generally 3 months in length depending on individual needs) and offers clients living skills, group therapy, individual counselling, on-site AA meetings, and work therapy.
There are a further range of supported accommodation options and domestic violence
refuges in Mount Isa.
Initiatives targeting homelessness in Mount Isa have been and continue to be
implemented through the Queensland Government’s Opening Doors—Queensland
Strategy for Reducing Homelessness 2011–14. These include a coordinated action
plan6 , brokerage, responses to public space issues, an increase/enhancement of
crisis and transitional housing, and proactive tenancy management practices within
6 Titled Sheltering the Isa, Mt Isa Homelessness Action Plan
25
the Housing Service Centre (Queensland DCS & QCOSS 2011) which, at the time of
writing was in the Department of Housing and Public Works7.
2.1.5 Tenancy support services in Mount Isa
In this section we summarise approaches to managing Indigenous tenancies adopted
by the Mount Isa Housing Service Centre (formerly in the Department of Community
Services & also in an earlier Department of Housing, North West Area Office).
Interviews were conducted in early 2012 with staff from the Centre and supplement
previous interviews by the authors (PM) with the staff of that office (Memmott et al.
2006, p.64; Flatau et al. 2009, pp.81–99).
The Department of Housing and Public Work’s Housing Service Centre in Mount Isa
services a geographical area that extends south-west to Birdsville, west to
Camooweal, east to Hughenden and Blackall, north to Normanton, Burketown and
Karumba, and within this area also includes the further centres of Cloncurry, Dajarra,
Boulia, Bedourie, Doomadgee and Gununa (Mornington Island).
There are a number of teams in the Mount Isa Service Centre, each with its own
manager and under the overall leadership of the Centre Manager. Two of those teams
are relevant to Mount Isa, the Housing Access Team, which responds to any enquiry
from potential or actual housing applicants in Mount Isa; and the Housing Services
City Team, (or ‘Client Services’) which is the landlord over the public rental housing
stock, both mainstream and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) housing, and
which handles rent assessment and property management complaints, and monitors
repairs and maintenance and upgrading budgets.
Additionally the Mount Isa Housing Service Centre also managed the referral of
applicants on its ‘Register of Need’ to Community Housing providers. Under this
program there were 66 properties within the region for which this service was provided
which included 36 properties in Mount Isa.
The Mount Isa Housing Service Centre operates from a baseline of Departmental
mainstream policy within the constructs of the Queensland Residential Tenancies Act.
However, the staff recognises that there is a need for a culturally-sensitive adaptation
of such a formal approach to effectively stabilise Aboriginal tenancies in the regional
city of Mount Isa—a city that contains families from the many different Indigenous
groups of North West Queensland and Central East Northern Territory. Aboriginal
households in Mount Isa vary greatly in their retention of traditional domiciliary
practices.
The Housing Service Centre approach in Mount Isa is designed to sustain tenancies,
reflected in the rent arrears statistics which were well below the state average of four
per cent (key performance indicator). During earlier research in August 2008, rent
arrears were low for this region (under 1%) compared to other Queensland regions,
according to the available statistics. The public housing population in Mount Isa was
about 80 per cent Indigenous. This level of arrears was an outstanding achievement
especially for the Pioneer area, a suburb of Mount Isa with a high density of
Indigenous people in public housing (Flatau et al. 2009, p.87). In March 2012, at the
time of completing this report, the arrears KPI for the Mount Isa region was higher at
2.28 per cent (with 2.8% for Pioneer), but still considered to be very satisfactory for
public housing, and indeed competitive for comparative cities with ATSI populations
(e.g. Townsville 5.53% & Mackay 5.98% arrears), see Figure 6.
7 As of April 2012
26
Patterns of circular mobility within the region impact regularly on household size,
composition and harmony when people from the outer parts of the region visit the
regional centre. The proactive and strategic tenant support services of the Mount Isa
Housing Service Centre include tenancy entry case management, early rent arrears
strategy, integrated case management, the targeted risk period strategy and
partnerships with the police. These services are designed to support at-risk tenancies
(both before the start of a tenancy and during the tenancy), to respond to early signs
that a tenancy is at risk, and to take into consideration local events and family/group
dynamics.
The ‘early intervention strategy’ involves an officer contacting and counselling tenants
as soon as they fall one week behind in rent and encouraging extra payments to keep
them off the arrears sheet. The ‘targeted risk-period strategy’ is used during the five
times of the year when Aboriginal tenants were clearly vulnerable for a range of socio-
economic and cultural reasons. Four of these times are when visitors are likely to
impact on household size, for example, Easter (April), Mount Isa Show (June), Mount
Isa Rodeo (August), and Christmas (December). During these events, there is
maximum Aboriginal mobility in the region including from the large Gulf communities
of Gununa and Doomadgee. Departmental staff know from past years that an
excessive number of relatives will arrive to stay with certain tenants, which may
violate their tenancy agreements. At these critical times, tenants are encouraged to
come into the Office to check their rental credit and agreements. Tenants are warned
to control their visitors and keep them quiet to avoid having visits from the police. In
Mount Isa, the presence of many different family groups from different communities
continues to contribute to the challenges of sustaining Indigenous tenancies (Flatau et
al. 2009, p.89, 99).
Housing Service Centre staff frequently dealt with high levels of alcohol consumption
and related disputes as part of their work. The ‘partnership with the police’ strategy
involves the Housing Centre staff, especially the Centre Manager, working closely
with the Mount Isa Police and is based on an understanding with them with respect to
dealing with Aboriginal family violence and other anti-social behaviour that affects
tenancy stability and housing stock. For example, if a tenant was reported for anti-
social behaviour, the police phone the Centre Manager who would accompany the
police to assist in resolving the problem, even if it was late at night. Housing Service
Centre staff will wait while the police deal with the problem, then they talk to the tenant
who often cannot easily step in to stop a relative’s behaviour because of their kinship
relation and/or obligations. Some tenants may thus appreciate the Centre Manager
and the police evicting their visitors (Flatau et al. 2009, pp.89–90).
Despite entry case management of various incoming tenants, there are always some
tenancy failures. Tenancies are often placed at risk when visiting families are staying,
and in some cases neighbourhood disputes can start up. Nevertheless, exploration of
the Queensland Government’s Mount Isa Housing Service Centre approach to
housing management reveals a proactive and, to some extent, a flexible approach to
sustaining Indigenous tenancies—one that reduces rental arrears, costly evictions,
and damage to property. In so doing, the service centre staff must balance their
awareness of cultural sensitivities with their need to produce competitive tenancy
statistical outcomes consistent with the Department of Community’s expectations.
How this plays out from an Aboriginal tenant’s perspective with a large household will
be explored later in this report.
27
2.2 Brief overview of Inala
The contemporary Inala is an outer south-western suburb of Brisbane, a city with has
a majority non-Indigenous population with just 1.4 per cent of the population being
Indigenous Australians, compared to a 7.3 per cent Indigenous population in Inala
(ABS 2006c). Inala is a hub of Indigenous residence within a belt of suburbs that
share a high level of Indigenous population density, running from the city of Ipswich
30km to the west of Brisbane, and south-east to Logan, a city 25 km south of
Brisbane's CBD, but contiguous with its southern suburbs. Ipswich, Inala, Logan and
suburbs in between (see Figure 3 below), have a set of similar features including a
high Indigenous population, a high recent migrant population, and higher than
average levels of financial disadvantage. They are characterised by negative
associations among Brisbane's wider population, yet internally Inala is characterised
by a strong sense of positive self-identification with place, community pride and
‘battler’ spirit (Peel 2003; Bond 2007; Greenop 2009).
The Inala area has been built on the traditional lands of the Yuggerah, Jagera and
Ugarapul people, whose Native Title claim encompasses a large area of Brisbane’s
metropolitan area south of the Brisbane River.
The Inala district was used as grazing and farming land, known as Woogaroo in the
colonial period. It was developed as a suburb in the post WWII era initially as a
returned soldier's housing estate named Serviceton, later taken over by the state due
to financial difficulties and the housing built as public housing stock for low income
families (Kaeys 2006). The name Inala was coined in 1953 and is said to mean `a
peaceful place' in an unknown Aboriginal language (Kaeys 2006). The initial
development of the modern suburb of Inala occurred in what is now the Biota Street
area, with bush land remaining for several decades in parts of Inala which have now
been developed into housing and commercial areas. Housing proceeded in stages, or
estates, with particular enclaves being developed at each stage, including local shops,
schools and parks so that each community area had local facilities within walking
distance. During the 1980s Inala Plaza shopping centre was developed, expanding
upon an existing set of local shops, to provide a large central shopping and civic
facility for the growing suburb, including a library, banks, government services,
supermarkets and smaller retailers.
Indigenous people were among the first people to settle into the Queensland
Government housing in Inala in the mid-1950s, which also included post-war refugee
families from Italy, Greece, Poland, Russia and elsewhere in Europe. According to
Indigenous residents who were children during that time, there was great mixing of
people of many nationalities, and a sense of acceptance between people of diverse
cultures. Despite this mixing of diverse social groups, there was still a strong
Indigenous community and identification during this early period. Many people had a
shared history of difficult mission life during the earlier part of the 20th century from
locations relatively near to Brisbane. The period of release from mission control
coincided with the creation of Inala as a state government housing scheme which
attracted many Indigenous families in the foundation years from Cherbourg Mission
north of Brisbane, Myora Mission on Stradbroke Island and Purga Mission close to the
nearby city of Ipswich. These places were common links in the history of Indigenous
people moving to Inala at that time, so that despite disparate home country areas prior
to the mission era, a shared knowledge of mission life and attachment to those
mission places was a uniting factor (Hegarty 1999; Holt 2001; Huggins & Huggins
1994). Many people also lived in other areas of Brisbane before coming to Inala,
especially the inner suburbs of New Farm, Paddington and West End, which were
hubs of Indigenous residence before gentrification that began in the 1980s (Cadd
28
1990). The movement to Inala was driven chiefly by the provision of state housing,
and many are still drawn to Inala on this basis.
Some people now recall the early era of establishment as one of connectedness and
solidarity for the Indigenous community in Inala, although perhaps nostalgia plays a
part in their perceptions. There is in perception that there were ‘two or three Murri
families on every street’. This is a contrast to the contemporary situation with greater
overall population numbers and a more distributed pattern of Indigenous people within
Inala, which some feel has resulted in a less connected Indigenous community.
2.2.1 Inala’s Indigenous demography
Inala’s Indigenous population appears according to statistics to be relatively stable in
a suburb with a slightly diminishing population. Notable, however, is the increasing
number of Indigenous status ‘not stated’ results in the consecutive Census, which has
risen from a 2.9 per cent response in 1991 to a 6.5 per cent response in 2006.
Additionally, known undercounting of Indigenous populations could be masking a
significantly higher population (Pink 2007).
Table 8: Inala population change, 1991–2006
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2001c, 2007f
The population statistics for Inala describe the area as having a significant
Indigenous, migrant and non-White population, particularly compared to neighbouring
suburbs. The Inala Indigenous population in recent decades is shown in Table 8.
Census data for Indigenous populations in specific areas of Brisbane is not available
prior to 1991, but the data that is available shows that the general area of Brisbane
had an Indigenous population of 1 per cent of the total population, and Ipswich had a
2 per cent Indigenous population, at the 1986 Census. In the years from 1996 the
Inala Indigenous population has been consistently higher than the wider Brisbane
Indigenous population (Figure 3). It should be noted that there has been an historical
tendency for Indigenous people to under-report in Census counts, partially attributed
to previous persecution and control of Indigenous people's movements during which
times it was disadvantageous to identify oneself or one's family as Aboriginal or
Torres Strait Islander. Other causes include concerns over privacy, general reluctance
to participate in information gathering for governments, mobility and literacy problems
with Census forms (Pink 2007, p.1). This under-reporting means that we could expect
that, to varying degrees, the Indigenous populations shown here are at best
conservative, and at worst significantly lower than the real population numbers
(Trewin 2001).
29
Figure 3: Indigenous people in Brisbane (2006) shown as percentage of the total
population in Statistical Local Areas*
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007
*Note: high proportion of Indigenous people in Inala
2.2.2 Housing tenure in Inala
A report for the Department of Housing and Local Government on the state of Inala's
Public Housing, and strategies for its improvement, included statistics from the 1980s
which are unavailable elsewhere (Todd et al. 1992). The report, based on
demographic analysis and community consultations, describes the state of Public
Housing tenants and Inala more generally in the 1980s and early 1990s, including an
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population of 1016, or 16 per cent of the overall
Brisbane Indigenous population (p.5). Inala also had an unemployment rate of 21 per
cent in 1986 (p.7), with only 12 per cent of dwellings being purchased compared to 39
per cent in Brisbane more generally (p.9).
Biddle (2008) discusses the contemporary over-representation of Indigenous people
in public housing in Australia and this is also very true for Inala, where 56 per cent of
Indigenous households in the Inala live in state-provided public housing compared to
31 per cent of non-Indigenous households in Inala (ABS 2007a). This makes
Indigenous people almost twice as likely to be in government housing, but also bears
out the reputation of Inala as a public housing suburb with massive numbers in public
housing compared to the Brisbane-wide average of 13.7 per cent of Indigenous
people in public housing and 3.2 per cent of non-Indigenous households (Biddle
2008). The Indigenous population in Brisbane has high rates of people living in public
housing compared to the non-Indigenous population, but these are still relatively low
compared to the rest of Australia. The most common form of housing tenure for
Indigenous people in Brisbane is private rental (41.9%).
30
Table 9: Inala housing tenure
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007b
*Note: total includes landlord type and tenure type not stated where applicable, hence totals do not equate to 100 per cent
2.2.3 Inala’s multi-cultural character
Interactions with and awareness of these multiple other ethnic and cultural groups is
integral to the experience of living in Inala and this has been a characteristic of the
suburb since its early years. The diverse population in Inala is reflected in the
following table that compares the diversity of population in Inala and the neighbouring
suburb of Forest Lake, which is not a ‘public housing suburb’.
Table 10: Ancestry of Inala and Forest Lake residents
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006c
Conflicts between Indigenous groups and other cultural and ethnic groups have been
known to flare at times in Inala. In the 1980s the area was renowned for so-called
gang violence and this has also become an issue in more recent years. A frequent
comment in the field work for this project is that ‘illegal immigrants’ are given
favourable housing treatment and that Indigenous crowding is caused by migrants
(particularly the highly visible African migrants who have moved into Inala in recent
years) taking houses that would otherwise go to Indigenous families.
Waiting times for housing in Inala are anecdotally several years unless a person’s
need is classified as an emergency by the state housing administrators. In the Inala
area, such an emergency is constituted by being homeless with children, being a
homeless victim of a natural disaster (such as the floods in Mackay in 2009), or other
severe circumstance. Several people stated that they had been on a waiting list for a
larger house for over five years, but had been unwilling to change their priorities for
housing to be placed in another suburb, where waiting times are shorter, due to their
strong preference for Inala.
31
2.3 Brief overview of Carnarvon
The town of Carnarvon is located on the coast, 904 km north of Perth at the mouth of
the Gascoyne River. Its location on the river notwithstanding, the Gascoyne region is
arid desert country. On the ABS remoteness index8, Carnarvon is classified as ‘very
remote’. It is a relatively old Australian town, surveyed and declared a town site in
1839, although it was many years later in the 1880s before it became a recognisable
settlement. It has the characteristic broad main street in the town centre, originally
constructed to accommodate the turning circle of carters’ teams of bullocks. The
climate is monsoonal but temperate. The major source of the town’s income derives
from fruit and vegetable farming and tourism.
The general area of Carnarvon was first settled in 1876 and at that time the only
industry was in sheep. There is a sizable harbour at the confluence of the Gascoyne
River and the sea and Carnarvon became a regular port of call for the coastal
shipping that serviced the far north of the state. Industry in the town began to diversify
and by 1920 the banana growing industry was developing along the banks of the
Gascoyne River. Other farming industries subsequently developed and Carnarvon’s
dominance of the Western Australian fruit and vegetable industry commenced from
this time. Probably the biggest single factor in the growth of the town was the opening
of Highway 1 in 1986. Once the road from Carnarvon to Broome was sealed with
bitumen, Broome became an important tourist destination and because it was on the
road north, Carnarvon profited from the new tourist trade as well.
During roughly the 1890s to c1962, the Aboriginal policies of protection and genetic
assimilation were operating in Western Australia, involving the practice of separating
children from their parents and people in general from their country. The port at
Carnarvon was one of the major destinations on the journey between the north and
south of the state taken by such people undergoing separation and removal. During
this time, the road system in the interior of the state was not yet developed and so
travel by boat around the coast was the most efficient means of transportation. The
state transported Aboriginal people from all areas by this means.
For most of the 20th century there was a reserve and a mission at Carnarvon where
Aboriginal people from other parts of the state were placed when they arrived. When
the state’s special Aborigines legislation was repealed between the 1950s and the
1970s many Aboriginal people were therefore familiar with Carnarvon, if not through
personal experience, then through the knowledge that they had from kinfolk living
there. In addition, there was a ready source of Aboriginal employment on the
surrounding pastoral stations.
By various means therefore, the Aboriginal community of Carnarvon came to be made
up of various language groups and varying cultures. In the generations immediately
following the demise of the assimilation policy in the 1950s, people found partners
mostly outside their own particular group, but who were resident in Carnarvon at that
time. Since then, however, as the old people have died and been buried at Carnarvon,
people have come to regard Carnarvon as their home town and they increasingly
partner among themselves, and with the out-of-town kinfolk of others in the
community.
8 The ABS introduced a remoteness classification in 2001. It divides Australia into six broad regions
called Remoteness Areas as a means of differentiating between ‘city’ and ‘country’ where the defining difference is distance from goods and services (ABS 2001; 2003)
32
2.3.1 Aboriginal housing history
Until 1981, Aboriginal people in Carnarvon were divided by culture into three groups,
two of which had appellations by which they were known within the Aboriginal
community. These two were called the ‘Boor Street Mob’, and the ‘Reserve Mob’. The
third group was referred to only as living ‘in town’. Most of those who lived in town
were in State Housing Commission homes, which by and large were in good repair.
The Reserve Mob (as the name would suggest) lived on the gazetted Carnarvon
Aboriginal Reserve (Birdsall 1990). The housing on the Reserve was provided by the
Western Australian Department of Native Welfare before the State Housing
Commission taking over responsibility for Aboriginal housing in 1972. These were
what was then called ‘transitional’ housing. Native Welfare transitional housing came
in two main types. There was ‘primary transitional’, made of unlined galvanised iron
and uncovered concrete floors. They had no connection to water or electricity, no
bathroom, and no toilet, though there was a tap in front of each house. Then there
was ‘standard transitional’, built either from unlined galvanised iron or asbestos
cement sheeting. These houses did have water, electricity, toilet and laundry facilities.
Cooking was done on a wood stove in the lounge room, which doubled as the kitchen
(Dagmar 1978, p.148). There was a third kind of transitional housing that was built by
the State Housing Commission. This kind was conventional in design and in the
facilities provided, but the interior walls were painted galvanised iron. The exterior
walls were either asbestos cement sheeting or timber cladding. This was built
specifically for Aboriginal housing (Dagmar 1978).
Homelessness in Carnarvon at this time was plainly visible and was represented by
the Boor Street Mob. The Boor Street Mob lived outside the town on undeveloped
land that was dominated by patchy, low scrub growing on sand flats. Essentially
everyone who lived there was squatting with the tacit approval of the Shire of
Carnarvon. There were no services provided nor was there any actual housing of any
kind. People who lived there built their own dwellings and paid the Shire to truck water
in or brought it in themselves in containers. There was considerable variety in these
dwellings. Some people had caravans, and some lived in cars or an old bus, but
mostly people constructed housing out of tents, tarpaulins, tin, corrugated iron and
wood. Cooking was done on a camp fire (Birdsall 1990). Dagmar (1978, p.150)
estimated the unmet need for housing at Boor Street on the basis of an average
number of persons per house of 5.8, finding that at least 138 more houses were
needed. This constitutes a homeless population of 800 people. A very few of these
were single white men or white men who had Aboriginal wives.
The Reserve, which was situated on the banks of the Gascoyne River, had always
been prone to infrequent but severe flooding in the rainy season, and on these
occasions the residents were forced to abandon the Reserve for higher ground. In the
late 1970s, the Reserve was again flooded and the decision was made to abandon it
finally. The residents were removed to higher ground and housed in tents pending the
development of a housing solution. At this point, they received an additional
appellation; the ‘Tent City Mob’. The housing solution developed for both the Tent City
Mob and the Boor Street Mob was the establishment of a subdivision of dedicated
Aboriginal housing at Boor Street which was named Mungullah.
Mungullah was vested with the Western Australian Housing Commission in 1981 on
Crown Reserve land for the purpose of housing Aboriginal people left homeless after
flooding. The population of the community was made up largely, though not
exclusively, of the former Boor Street campers and the former residents of the
(cancelled) Aboriginal reserve who were also the local traditional owners, the Ingarda
people. The exact population of the community can never be stated with absolute
33
accuracy because of long-established visiting patterns between Mungullah and other
communities to the north and south, but especially the associated community of
Burrungurrah (which is approximately 500 km east of Carnarvon). The reserve is no
longer used specifically for Aboriginal housing, but a high Indigenous population
remains.
At the 2006 Census, 39 per cent of Indigenous households in Carnarvon were housed
by the state compared to 9.4 per cent of non-Indigenous households (ABS 2007c). In
total 69.5 per cent of Indigenous households in Carnarvon rented and only 32.5 per
cent of non-Indigenous households rented.
2.3.2 Demography
According to population figures obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the
population of Carnarvon has fluctuated over the last ten years, dropping in the 2006
Census by some 3000 residents. This drop may be due to changes in the ABS
methods of calculation, but even taking this into account the general trend of the
population in the SLA of Carnarvon appears to be decreasing according to successive
Censuses. A drop also occurred to the Aboriginal population albeit not nearly to the
same extent as the non-Aboriginal one, and thus the proportion of the population
which is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander actually increased to 19.1 per cent in
2006. (ABS 2006a, 2006b, 2007)
Table 11: Carnarvon population change, 1996–2006
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006a, 2007a
Note: the Indigenous status ‘not stated’ population is not shown here but is reflected in total population
Regular circular mobility occurs from the discrete Aboriginal settlement of
Burringurrah westwards into Carnarvon. Fortunately an in-depth study of circular
mobility within the Carnarvon region has been previously carried out for AHURI
(Habibis et al. 2011), and informs this study.
2.3.3 Contemporary Aboriginal housing
At the time of writing this report, the Mungullah community had a total of 43 dwellings.
If we assume the average occupancy is four people, this gives a very rough estimate
of a population of 172. Depending on season and circumstance, this population can
swell or reduce considerably. Housing at Mungullah was managed by the Mungullah
community council from the late 1990s to 2009, and is now under the management of
the Western Australian Department of Housing (DoH (WA)).
All other public housing in Carnarvon is managed directly by the DoH (WA). Apart
from the DoH (WA), there are a few rental houses managed by the Murchison Region
Aboriginal Corporation (MRAC), which is run out of Geraldton. None of our
interviewees were living in MRAC housing.
34
Apart from the DoH (WA) and MRAC, the only organisation that provides housing-
related services in Carnarvon is the Carnarvon Women’s Refuge. There is no service
for men, and children can only be accommodated by the Refuge with their mothers
and, in the case of boys, only to the age of 13. Carnarvon has no Supported
Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) provider. Other organisations of
relevance to Aboriginal people in Carnarvon include the CDEP provider, Emu
Services, The Carnarvon Aboriginal Medical Service and the Family Support Service
which offers financial counselling, child protection and family counselling. The Family
Support Service is also responsible for the Carnarvon Women’s Refuge. Carnarvon
has no dedicated service for alcohol and drug addiction or any specific services for
men or adolescents.
No count has been made of Indigenous people living in situations of secondary
homelessness (that is those otherwise homeless people who have found housing with
friends and relations), but Carnarvon practitioners (housing welfare workers etc.) have
in the past acknowledged that probably more than half the Indigenous households in
Carnarvon were subject to crowding to some degree (Habibis, Birdsall-Jones et al.
2011). According to the last 2006 Census there were a total of 338 households with
Indigenous persons (ABS 2006a, b).
Currently, mobility patterns both within the town and from other towns result from
family homelessness, youth homelessness and the dysfunctional behaviour which
arises out of substance abuse. All of these serve to produce situations of crowding.
Substance abuse related mobility is a visible problem in certain areas of the town and,
from time to time, at Mungullah (Birdsall-Jones & Corunna 2008).
Also of significance in relation to housing, is the overall economic situation of Western
Australia with the emergence of a ‘two-speed’ economy associated with the mining
boom. This has noticeable effects on the housing situation around the state. In
Carnarvon it has meant that more rental properties are taken up by the large mining
companies, reducing the supply of available rental housing in the town (Trenwith
2012). This has made it difficult to impossible for employed Aboriginal people whose
income is in excess of the DoH (WA) limit to obtain private rental homes. Previous
research has shown that this barrier to obtaining private rental for employed
Aboriginal people contributes to crowding (Birdsall-Jones & Corunna 2008; Birdsall-
Jones et al. 2010; Memmott et al. 2009).
2.4 Brief overview of Swan
Swan is an outer suburb of Perth. In keeping with its status as the state capital, Perth
is the largest city in Western Australia. It is situated on a narrow sand plain on the
south-west coast, roughly at a climatic divide between the relatively arid ‘Wheat Belt’
region and the comparatively well-watered south-western corner of the state.
Fortuitously, the earliest information available on Aboriginal housing in the Perth
metropolitan area concerns the eastern part of the metropolitan area near the field site
of Swan. This information is contained in two rare, unpublished reports—one
submitted to the State Native Welfare Department and the second to the Office of
Community Relations under Gordon Bryant, Aboriginal Affairs Minister during the
Whitlam Government.
In July of 1908, following the closure of the Welshpool native settlement, a number of
Aboriginal families came to live at a long-standing Indigenous camping ground in
West Guildford. By the end of that month, a complaint had been made to the police
that the ‘natives’ were ‘far from the best and they are within hearing of the road and
there are a lot of children going to and fro’ (Lippmann 1977, p.1). The police moved
35
them to Success Hill, on the Swan River, but two years later as a result of more
complaints from Guildford residents, they were moved to a new reserve in South
Guildford (Biskup 1973, p.121). In 1941, complaints made by ‘various road boards
[the precursors to Shire/City councils] adjacent to the Guildford townships’ resulted in
all Aboriginal people in the Guildford area being removed to a campsite in
Bassendean. On account of further complaints from local residents there, they were
shifted to a number of camps in the Bassendean-Bayswater area. In 1954, they were
removed from these camps, evidently with no particular arrangements having been
made for them. A number went to one of the old sanitary depot camps (Lippmann
1977, p.2). Successive efforts were made by the Department of Native Welfare to
establish a permanent camp, however:
A mere rumour that the Department is negotiating for the purchase of a
suitable block inevitably results in a spate of publicity and organised protests,
in the course of which natives and the Department are subjected to
disgraceful, unwarranted criticism…The inescapable conclusion, therefore, is
that natives were not wanted anywhere in the metropolitan area fifty years
ago, and they are not wanted today. (Annual Report of the Western Australian
Department of Native Welfare, 1959, quoted in Lippmann 1977, p.2)
Lippmann goes on to describe the care of homeless Aboriginal people during the
period of her investigation:
Aboriginal Hostels are fairly inactive in Western Australia and the home for
inebriate Aborigines which is run under church auspices is overcrowded and
unable to offer rehabilitation programmes. A large tin shed nearby, known as
Miller’s Cave, containing a few old beds and no other facilities whatsoever,
serves as night shelter for whatever Aboriginal alcoholics might seek
protection there. Others camp in the open. (Lippmann 1977, p.7)
She received estimates of around 900 Aboriginal families on the State Housing
Commission waiting list and roughly 100 homeless Aboriginal men living in East
Perth. (p.8)
According to Robinson et al. (1977, p.15), ‘conventional housing’ for Aboriginal people
in Perth ‘did not become an issue until the 1960s’. They quote the Annual Report of
the Department of Native Welfare which noted that in 1966, 90–100 Aboriginal
families were living in private rental accommodation in Perth, some of which was ‘unfit
for human occupation, and located in areas which have been approved as future
industrial sites’ (Department of Native Welfare Annual Report 1966, p.35, quoted in
Robinson et al. 1977, p.15). Aboriginal housing was the responsibility of the
Department of Native Welfare in 1966, and they had provided one conventional house
in that year. The following year the Department appointed a dedicated housing officer
and by 1972 there were 205 Aboriginal homes (Robinson et al. 1977, p.15). In 1972,
the State Housing Commission took over responsibility for Aboriginal housing.
However, the provision of housing lagged well behind the population growth. By 1976,
when Lippmann was conducting her research for the Office for Community Relations,
the shortage of homes for Aboriginal people in Perth ran to 500 dwellings (Robinson
et al. 1977, p.16). Lippmann’s contemporaneous assessment regarding a shortage of
900 dwellings may have been an overestimate, therefore.
2.4.1 Demography
In the 2006 Census there were 1 445 079 people resident in Perth, which is more than
half the population of Western Australia (ABS 2007a). Perth had a population of
21 323 Indigenous people, which was the largest single population of Indigenous
people of Western Australia. However, at 1.5 per cent, Indigenous people form only a
36
small proportion of the total Perth population (ABS 2007a). Indigenous people in Perth
are fairly well distributed throughout the greater metropolitan area, although not in the
affluent riverside and coastal suburbs.
Table 12: Swan SLA population change, 1996–2006
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007d
Note: The Indigenous status ‘not stated’ population is not shown here but is reflected in total population
Over the census years from 1996–2006, the Swan Statistical Local Area (SLA) has
remained stable. By the 2006 Census, the population of the SLA had increased from
69 296 in 1996 to 93 280, with the Indigenous population remaining at a very similar
percentage of the overall population in Swan (2.7%), keeping pace with general
population increases in the SLA. Figure 4 shows the proportion of Indigenous
population in Swan in relation to that of other SLAs in Perth, some of which have
higher proportions. However Swan is a large area with its Indigenous population
dispersed among a substantial non-Aboriginal population (84 950 persons). Swan
does have a very large number of people not recording their Indigenous status on the
Census, some 6.2 per cent of the total population, which could be masking a higher
Indigenous population than Census data currently show.
37
Figure 4: Indigenous people in Perth (2006) shown as a percentage of the total
population in Statistical Local Areas, with study area of Swan SLA indicated
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007
2.4.2 Contemporary housing profile
The public housing provider for Perth and the rest of Western Australia is the
Department of Housing (DoH (WA)). In Western Australia, Aboriginal community
housing is administered through an Aboriginal Housing section within the DoH (WA).
This is changing under the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous
Housing, which will negotiate Housing Management Agreements with remote
communities housing to manage their housing assets for a period of 40 years. Under
these partnership agreements, household ‘overcrowding’ is a key priority. Aboriginal
public and community housing tenants accommodate their homeless kinfolk in their
own homes, often in contravention of the terms of their rental leases and the DoH
(WA) thus provides de facto housing for many Aboriginal people who would otherwise
38
be without shelter options. It remains to be seen whether or not these various
agreements will have an effect on the household crowding experience of Aboriginal
people.
There are a variety of services for homeless people in Perth run variously by religious
organisations, community groups, and community housing organisations; some of
these were funded through the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program
(SAAP). SAAP was a service of the Department of Family, Housing, Community
Services and Aboriginal Affairs (FaCHSIA). It has now been replaced by ‘A Place to
Call Home’ under the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness,
administered through FaHCSIA (Australian Government, FaHCSIA 2009).
Currently, there are more non-Indigenous than Indigenous households renting from
the state by numbers alone. However as a proportion of each group, 23.6 per cent of
all Indigenous rentals are with the state, whereas only 5 per cent of all non-Indigenous
rentals are with the state. The majority of the non-Indigenous rentals are in non-state
rental. Thus, of all non-Indigenous houses in Swan, 21 per cent are rented (ABS
2007e).
Of all Indigenous houses in Swan, 41 per cent are being purchased. Some 1.6 per
cent of all houses in the Swan SLA are owned or are being purchased by Indigenous
people. Ninety-eight per cent of all houses that are owned or being purchased in
Swan are owned or being purchased by non-Indigenous people (ABS 2007e).
Table 13: Rental housing, home ownership and homes being purchased in Swan
*Total households also includes categories not in this table, hence totals area greater than categories listed in this table
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007e
Table 14: Swan Indigenous household percentages
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007e, 2007g
39
2.4.3 The ‘three strikes’ policy
In May of 2011, the Western Australian Government enacted what is referred to as
the ‘three strikes’ policy by introducing policy amendments to the existing Disruptive
Behaviour Management policy. The amendments removed what the Minister said was
‘unnecessary and problematic discretion’ (Buswell 2011) in the implementation of the
existing policy. He did this by introducing three levels of disturbances. The policy rules
as outlined for tenants are quoted below:
The Department of Housing has defined three levels of disruptive behaviour
and will respond in a fair and reasonable manner to all complaints. Once the
complaint is received the Department will investigate the disruptive behaviour
and when the Department is satisfied the incident occurred the Department will
take the appropriate action against the tenant.
Dangerous behaviour
Dangerous behaviour is characterised by activities that pose a demonstrable
risk to the safety or security of residents or property; or have resulted in injury
to a person in the immediate vicinity and subsequent Police charges or
conviction.
Response: Immediate proceedings will be taken under Section 73 of the
Residential Tenancies Act 1987, or other relevant section where this cannot be
applied.
Serious disruptive behaviour
Serious disruptive behaviour is defined as activities that intentionally or
recklessly cause disturbance to persons in the immediate vicinity, or which
could reasonably be expected to cause concern for the safety or security of a
person or their property.
Response: A strike will be issued following one incident the Department is
satisfied occurred. Legal action will proceed if one subsequent incident (of similar
severity) occurs within a period of 12 months.
Minor disruptive behaviour
Minor disruptive behaviour is defined as activities that cause a nuisance, or
unreasonably interfere with the peace, privacy or comfort, of persons in the
immediate vicinity.
Response: A strike will be issued for each incident the Department is satisfied
occurred. Legal action will proceed if three strikes are issued within a period of 12
months. (Housing WA 2012)
Important aspects of this policy are that three breaches of a minor nature, within a 12-
month period will lead to eviction. The brochure outlining this policy for tenants states
that Minor Disruptive Behaviour (constituting one of three strikes) can include
‘Nuisance from children, associated with loud noise, but short of misdemeanours such
as property damage. Loud parties resulting in Police attendance ... Domestic disputes
which cause disturbance to neighbours’ (Government of Western Australia n.d.)
among other minor events.
Within the DoH (WA), this made necessary the creation of a new division of housing
officers whose sole duty is to investigate, verify allegations of misbehaviour and to put
in process the appropriate measures as dictated by the policy. One effect of this on
certain Aboriginal public housing tenants (as revealed in our interview findings) has
been to introduce elements of fear and confusion into the management of their
40
houses. This policy is relevant in differing ways to both Swan and Carnarvon.
Examples of such will be considered in our Western Australian research data, set out
in later chapters.
It should be understood that this policy does not originate with anything to do with the
Western Australian Aboriginal community. The Minister, Mr Buswell, requested the
redevelopment of the existing policy after the explosion of a methamphetamine lab in
a DoH (WA) unit in the Perth suburb of Carlisle in May 2011. He was quoted at the
time the policy was announced in June 2011 as saying:
I expect there will be an increase in the number of evictions. I expect I will be
back here in the not-too-distant future defending some of those evictions
against claims that we are unfairly evicting people. There are support services
… They will have a role to play. (Emerson 2011)
41
3 MOUNT ISA LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS
This chapter sets out the findings from our interview survey of the 21 householders in
Mount Isa who were reported to have experienced large household formation.
As noted in the previous chapter, Mount Isa has displayed a pattern for over 45 years
as a regional visitation and immigration centre for an Aboriginal cultural region. At the
time of our survey, its gradually increasing Aboriginal (and Torres Strait Islander)
population was in the order of 3250 (identifying) persons, some 16.5 per cent of the
total city population of around 20 000 which included some in-migration from the outer
towns and settlements of the region. The strong internal pattern of circular mobility
was driven by kinship, recreation and service provision. Housing characteristics were
shaped by:
1. The growing mining economy of the Queensland North West Mineral Province
which was occurring at differential rates in response to fluxes in mineral export
demand and prices.
2. The under-design of the town’s sewerage processing infrastructure which in recent years had severely constrained ongoing urban expansion.
The net outcome at the time of the survey was a two-speed economy with an overall
shortage of housing supply and a significant difference between public and private
rental costs. Aboriginal households were frequently large and the state government
housing officers exercised some flexibility in administrating tenancy rules knowing that
eviction was likely to displace people to another of their properties. This strategic
response was complemented by a city Homelessness Strategy with a range of
managed facilities for temporary, emergency and transitional accommodation (both
government and NGO).
As indicated in Chapter 1, the analysis in this chapter has the following content
structure:
Household profiles in sample.
Household expansion—origin of visitors.
Reasons for household expansion.
Large household formation patterns.
Sleeping arrangement principles.
Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees.
Perceptions of stress by other interviewees.
Strategies used to cope when stressed.
Neighbourhood stress problems.
Physical needs and improvements to cope.
3.1 Household profiles in the Mount Isa sample
Table 15 sets out the 21 household profiles that were sampled in Mount Isa
differentiating by gender and separating children and babies, as well as dividing the
core household from those deemed as ‘visitors’ at the time of interview.
42
Table 15: Profile of sampled Mount Isa households—actual people present
Note: ‘2 householders’ implies female/male spouses in all cases
43
Table 16: Profile of sampled Mount Isa households—visitors present
Note: Assume adults aged 18 or over
Our brief to our Aboriginal consultants was to take us to households that had a
reputation of being large and/or known to experience large visitation numbers. This
latter criterion did not necessarily mean they were large households at the time of
interview but for most this proved to be the case, with only two householders having
less than five people at the time of interview. Household sizes ranged from one to
nineteen (see Table 16), with an average of 10 persons (total 210 persons). Using a
conventional density measure this represents an average of three persons per
bedroom (69 bedrooms total).
44
Table 17: Sizes of Mount Isa households at time of interview, July 2010
Two sets of data on sleeping arrangements in rooms were collected for Mount Isa,
one set being where people said they slept during their interviews, and the second set
based on observations of bedding (and sometimes sleeping persons) and information
collected (and mapped on floor plans) during a walk-through of the house with a
householder. It was generally found from the walk-through that more people were
sleeping in the houses than were identified during the interview. The table below is
thus largely based on the observational data, with some cross-checking from interview
data. Note: those figures do not necessarily reflect the size of household when it is
perceived to be crowded.
45
Table 18: Sleeping arrangements described by Mount Isa interviewees, July 2011
* = Said to be used for visitors when they come
The Mount Isa sample thus contained houses with the following bedroom numbers:
three two-bedroom, eleven three-bedroom, five four-bedroom and two five-bedroom.
We were informed by tenants that the limited numbers of five-bedroom houses in the
state rental stock were largely located in the suburb of Happy Valley which
corresponds with where our two interviewees were located who lived in five-bedroom
houses.
46
A clear finding from this table is that people were commonly using the lounge/dining
room for sleeping as well as a range of external spaces on the periphery of the house
and in the yard, in addition to all of the bedrooms.
Figure 5: Map of the ‘beats’ of the North West Queensland/Northern Territory border
region (by Long 2005, p.359)
47
Figure 6: Mount Isa’s named suburbs and Census Collection Districts, coloured
according to per cent of Indigenous population. Numerals refer to numbers of
interviews in particular districts*
*Note high density of Indigenous people in Pioneer
48
3.1.1 Household expansion—origins of visitors
The first category of visitors is likely to come from the home communities of the
householder. Table 19 indicates the home community of the interviewees in the Mount
Isa sample. Only two interviewees identified as being from Mount Isa itself. There
were seven from Dajarra and one from Boulia, both small towns to the south of Mount
Isa, four from Alpurrurulum, a discrete community to the west and located a little over
the Queensland-Northern Territory border, and three from the discrete communities of
Doomadgee and Gununa in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Thus 17 of the 21 randomly
located householders were from within the North West Queensland region. This
finding is in keeping with the well reported phenomenon of Mount Isa being the
regional centre of an Aboriginal cultural region with people having a range of places
where they can live in a ‘beat’ throughout the region. This wider North West
Queensland region is shown in Figure 5 (taken from Long 2005: figure 8.13). Note
that it straddles into the Northern Territory thereby implementing two state
jurisdictions.
Table 19: Identified home community of interviewees
A further four interviewees were from outside the North West Queensland region
being from the east coast: one from Rockhampton (to the south-east) and three from
Innisfail (to the north-east).
Sociogeographic exogamy
A second category of visitors is likely to come from the home community(s) of the
householder’s spouse. There were 11 out of 21 interviewees who had a spouse. Of
these, 10 had a spouse from a different home community to their own. The
combinations were as follows (interviewee’s home community first, then that of
spouse):
M.I.7: Mount Isa/Torres Strait Islander.
49
M.I.8: Mount Isa/Alice Springs but this Mount Isa woman was descended from an
Alpurrurulum family
M.I.9: Alpurrurulum/Andarrenginye (Sandover River communities, N.T.)
M.I.10: DoomadgeeBidunggu (Gregory Crossing)
M.I.12: Woorabinda/Dajarra
M.I.15: Mount Isa/Doomadgee
M.I.17: Dajarra/Camooweal
M.I.19: Innisfail-Melbourne/Mount Isa
M.I.20: Innisfail/Cloncurry
M.I.21: Innisfail/Boulia.
Of these ten sets of householder spouses, four were intra-regional exogamy, while six
were extra-regional. Of the six extra-regional, three were women from the east coast
with families from Innisfail but dispersed down as far south as Mackay. The fourth
woman was from Woorabinda, near Rockhampton. The fifth was from within the
region and had her spouse from Alice Springs. The sixth was again from within the
region and she had a Torres Strait Islander spouse but he was possibly a diasporic
Islander whose family had been in the North West region for some generations
(originally brought as railway gangers).
These exogamous linkages were important because they dictated from where visiting
kinspersons were likely to come, defining a ‘visitor catchment’ so to speak. These
visitors were all relatives and extended family who had spread out to different
residential locations from the original home communities of the householder and of
his/her spouse. The visitor catchment area was likely to be much more extensive for
the extra-regional exogamous couples. Thus, in the case of M.I.19, the householder
couple gave home bases as Innisfail, Melbourne and Mount Isa but listed their visitors
coming from a range of other places in addition to these, viz. from Normanton,
Darwin, Innisfail, Melbourne, Cairns, Yarrabah, Bundaberg, Gladstone, Mackay,
Brisbane.
All of the interviewees and their spouses were Aboriginal, except for the case of M.I.7
where the interviewee was a white woman who had children to two former Aboriginal
spouses and was with her third spouse, a Torres Strait Islander. She said she ‘grew
up in Mount Isa—in a white family—but there were a lot of Aboriginal kids at high
school and I got mixed in’. Our Aboriginal consultant confirmed she grew up in a big
family with about six brothers and sisters. Also that she lived at Alpurrurulam and
Ilampe (Northern Territory) with an Aboriginal spouse and was used to bush living.
People bring kangaroos to her house and cook in her yard.
Given the history of removals of North West Queensland people to the penal
settlement of Palm Island during the 20th century, it was not surprising to find some
Palm Island visitor connections. Thus, in the case of M.I.20:
Jack’s family visits from the coast, from Palm Island. Two or three people
come, Aunties. Stay about two weeks, come on one payday. Two or three
here, two or three stay somewhere else. Come by bus when visiting. Palm
Island crew come for Boxing Day or for meetings for native title. Trying to get
Jack into Kalkadoon Native Title [claim group], but he won’t do it—too much
fighting. (M.I.20)
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Reasons for household expansion
A question was asked about why people had come to stay or visit over the last year
and the responses were compiled into Table 20. Note that some informants provided
generic statements about when or why visitors come, but these were not included in
this table unless they could be linked to a specific event. Generally this question was
poorly reported, with not all events reported, as particular events merged into generic
events. So the responses are not an objective measure of all visits but indicate the
type and intensity of visitation drivers.
Table 20: Household expansion with visitors—catalysing events recorded from the
previous year (may or may not be perceived as crowding)
Kinship as a driver of mobility, combined with other events
One of the most frequent reasons for why people came to stay was simply to visit their
relatives. This is in keeping with an earlier AHURI study of Aboriginal mobility in this
region in which kinship was found to be the key driver of circular mobility (Memmott et
al. 2006). Several interviewees thus reported family visitors at Christmas time (e.g.
M.I.4, 12, 21). A variant of this was people who were travelling through Mount Isa en
route to somewhere else and who chose to stay with a relative both to visit them and
out of convenience.
Accommodation of extended family for significant recreational events in Mount Isa
also obtained one of the highest scores in Table 20. The most commonly reported
event was the annual rodeo in August, while other events were the Show and
particular AFL games, especially the finals.
The following three interviewees describe their visitor events at rodeo time:
Probably get about 20–30 [visitors] at rodeo time, with their children. Get three
carloads for rodeo. Got a big tent, put up at back. They come from Bonya.
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Bonya people bring food – kangaroo, emu. They come for short visit, stay for
months, get stuck. Bring own food, swag and eight-man tent. It’s good when
you’ve got people who share. But in other families some lap it up, abuse their
host. (M.I.5)
[And] come for rodeo. Back yard gets full—they bring swags. Bring kangaroo
and bush tucker. Eat anyone’s tucker. Chuck in [for rent] some time… Saw 40
in backyard. Some people sleep inside with babies… (M.I.6)
Will come for rodeo time…. Both families, [husband’s] and [wife’s] come to
stay. From Boulia, about ten people come, but also stay with other family. Also
come from Cloncurry too, about six or eight people. All family visiting. They’ll
bring tents and chuck in for food. They pay it as board but [I] keep it small
because they’ll payback. Old people and kids be inside. Girls have own room.
Jeffrey’s room—visitors can use [it]. (M.I.6)
There is a common theme here of people camping in the yard, even cooking bush
game in ground ovens. Some visitors share their resources and are not an economic
burden on their host, while for others the opposite is the case.
The third most frequently given reason for visitation was to attend funerals in Mount
Isa and by extension, participate in mourning and grievance behaviour (e.g. M.I.1, 4,
6, 7, 9, 14, 15 & 21). The timing of our interview fortnight followed soon after a
particularly large funeral, which fortuitously generated insightful data.
Ray Punch’s funeral case study
Ray Punch was the son of parents from the Georgina River (Waluwarra tribal group),
and the Central East Northern Territory (Wakaya). He died prematurely aged in his
mid-40s in June 2011. His funeral was coordinated through his sister who was an
interviewee (M.I.1) living in a three-bedroom house. Her household increased from
eight to 24 during the funeral of this socially important middle-aged initiated adult
male, with the overnight visitors. Some stayed for two or three nights, some for a
week, and a few for a couple of weeks, coming in advance to organise the funeral.
She hosted 16 visitors (8 adults & 8 children), mostly from Wunara Outstation in the
Northern Territory, located on the deceased’s traditional land. She also hosted about
100 people on the evening of the wake. From our other interviews (which were
selected randomly and not designed to track this particular event), we also identified
funeral visitors who stayed in three other households, and undoubtedly there were
more hosting householders whom we did not interview.
The sister of the deceased gave the following account of her funeral visitors. She
(M.I.1) reported: ‘it was ok but it was crowded,’ indicating there was not excessive
stress due to the overall experience, although there were some inconvenient
incidents. Her two girls moved up to her elder daughter’s house to make room for the
visitors. She recalls a ‘big line up for shower and the water got cold with gas hot water
system’. Also, a ‘line up for toilet—kept going back and someone always in there’.
Lots of people were visiting at the same time for the wake.
Had wake here; hired table and chairs. Few drinks, but all pretty quiet. All
packed at front and back—100 people or more. One woman got full of rum.
She was just visiting—went stupid—the only one! She started [drinking] in
early evening and got worse. Took her in a car swearing. Kept her in car.
Drove her to the drive-in theatre ground. After she left, all was pretty quiet.
The next day, the floor was reported to be covered in grime from spilt drinks. The
householder said she ‘took off’ and let six other people clean up the house and take
the rubbish to dump.
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Other hosts of visitors coming for this funeral reported briefly as follows:
Only when a funeral, we get overnight visitors for a few days. Biggest mob for
Ray’s funeral—four weeks ago. They’re all Dajarra and Boulia people.’
[Observers agreed that there were 20 people in this house.] (M.I.6)
After Ray’s funeral—had two couples with their children as well as ‘Sharkie’
who sleeps under the gazebo; eight visitors altogether. We get [maximum] two
or three carloads of visitors for any big funeral, and there are between one and
three funerals a year. Have been suicides in Dajarra and Mount Isa lately
[giving rise to frequent funerals]. (M.I.7)
Ray’s funeral—had Jacob’s wife Essie and their family staying here. They
bring money and food. [Estimate six people] (M.I.9)
It should be noted that there is an economy parameter to the nature of funerals
whereby the extent of available capital of the extended family and friends dictates
where a particular funeral can occur. More preferably it will occur in the deceased’s
home community with the cost covered of transporting the body back from Mount Isa.
Alternatively, if such transport funds are not available, the funeral must occur in the
regional centre of Mount Isa where the body is located after its post mortem. The
latter option clearly impacts on temporary household expansion in Mount Isa,
especially in the case of a culturally eminent or socially distinctive deceased
individual. Note that this was not an issue for Doomadgee and Mornington Island
(Gununa) communities as the lucrative Century Mine in the Gulf of Carpentaria had
provided a funeral fund to cover the costs of transporting any bodies by plane back to
these places from Mount Isa.
Health issues as a driver of visitation to Mount Isa
Another common reason for people from the wider region to stay with their relatives in
Mount Isa was the need to obtain health services, usually at the Mount Isa Hospital
(M.I.2, 9, 14). Such individuals may stay two or three weeks. For example, M.I.2 said
she accommodated members of at least five extended families from Mornington
Island for this reason, and probably more. Householder M.I.19 reported: ‘Hospital
visits, for friends; stayed here because hostel has strict hours to be inside, so stayed
here three months; was pregnant, stayed until she had the baby, then stayed for an
extra two weeks.’
A related event that can result in even longer visitation impacts is the prelude to the
slow death of a kinsperson. Thus, in the case of householder M.I.9, a close relative
from Alpurrurulum was admitted to the Mount Isa Hospital with severe cancer. She
lingered there for some months before her expected death occurred. During this
period many people from Alpurrurulum came to visit her in Mount Isa, knowing that it
was likely their last contact with her. Householder M.I.9 accommodated from 15–20
visitors at a time during this prolonged event as well as during the actual funeral at the
end.
Prison release persons
Another category of visitors was comprised of those relatives (usually male but not
exclusively so) who had been recently released from Stuart Creek Prison (near
Townsville). For example, the householder of M.I.3 said that her ‘[Elder sister had] just
come out of jail—let him stay with me because nowhere to stay—wanted a flat’. As
was the case for those coming to obtain treatment at the hospital, those with serious
convictions may be accommodated both en route to prison and on return. Thus
householder M.I.6. was accommodating ‘a man just out of jail; also stayed before
court and jail’.
53
This was particularly the case for Doomadgee and Mornington Island households
since prison releasees from these communities had to catch a bus to Mount Isa then
connect with a plane to their remote community. The male householder of M.I.10,
himself from Doomadgee, indicated ‘One boy on parole stopping here now, Jimmy
Jones from Mornington Island’, and added: ‘Men on parole supposed to stop
here…but they cut through to the Northern Territory to get away from police’.
Another related category was that of persons on court orders requiring them to
temporarily stay away from their home community due to having caused some conflict
or carried out homicide or manslaughter there. Thus a Doomadgee host (M.I.10)
reported: ‘Some nephew and niece here: John Garrett stays here—not allowed on
Mornington Island till November. Felicity Garrett stops here too, but she [residing] at
Pamela Street now.’ (These two siblings later appeared and introduced themselves.)
Extraordinary case of a disaster response—Cyclone Yasi in February 2011
One event that triggered the expansion of numerous Aboriginal households in Mount
Isa was that of Cyclone Yasi. Cyclone Yasi came west from Fiji, crossing the
Queensland coast around midnight of 2 February, destroying Mission Beach and
Tully, then tracking westwards causing widespread damage and flooding as a rain
depression. Its momentum was so strong it was expected to cause damage to Mount
Isa, then cross the Northern Territory border and possibly impact on Alpurrurulum
(near Lake Nash). Due to the isolated nature of Alpurrurulum, a decision was made in
the Barkly Shire to evacuate all of the residents to the south-west, first to the small
settlement of Ampilatwatja whose infrastructure was quickly taxed, then to Alice
Springs and accommodate them in the Showground. However many of the
Alpurrurulum people felt socially isolated in Alice Springs and moved of their own
accord north to Tennant Creek and then east to Mount Isa where they knew they
could stay with close relatives until the roads dried out. Those Mount Isa
householders who were in the custom of hosting Alpurrurulum visitors under normal
conditions were inundated by the many families who arrived. Thus the interview team
encountered three households who had experienced visitors in this way:-
Got stuck for Christmas, when Cyclone Yasi came—People got moved
because flood at Lake Nash [Alpurrurulum]. Some come here and stopped
here—came to Mount Isa on bus. Couldn’t get back for months. They hired
plane to get back. We had Barbara Egert, her daughter Noela, Bethel (the
mother) and her sister-in-law, Mary, and her daughter. (M.I.4)
[During] big flood time [Cyclone Yasi]—big mob here, came on bus from Alice
Springs and Tennant Creek—they didn’t know many people there [so left and
came here]. (M.I.9)
At Cyclone Yasi time, all the Lake Nash people were not here in flood—
because Lake Nash mob got [rental] houses here [in Mount Isa] now. [So they
stay with own relatives.] Only Shirley, Agie and Jill—three from Lake Nash
stopped here. (M.I.14)
Further reasons for visitation of householder interviewees
Relatives were also accommodated by interviewees when they came from the outer
region to Mount Isa for shopping. For example M.I.17 reported a brother from
Doomadgee visiting Mount Isa regularly to buy car parts.
Shortage of accommodation at affordable rental is another issue, which can lead to a
host accommodating kin. One householder characterised the rental cost situation as
follows:
54
We all stay together—so expensive to get a private house. Black people are
flat out getting a house—very prejudicial around here. Mount Isa one of most
prejudicial places for accommodation. That’s why a lot of families live together.
More houses needed in this town. No accommodation makes everyone
depressed. Everyone shares everything, bunk down together, it’s Aboriginal
way. (M.I.5)
As well as people having their initial motivation to visit Mount Isa for a particular
matter, their stay could be unexpectedly extended for various reasons, most often to
wait for funds from an expected welfare cheque. Another reason for delay in returning
home was due to unexpected loss or disruption of transport means. For example,
M.I.5 was hosting a man from Bonya while his car was being repaired. Others from
Mornington Island or Doomadgee may fail to get to the airport on time due to indulging
in a drinking spree (‘got choked down’).
Visitor scale
It proved difficult to elicit any sense of the exact number of visitors from interviewees.
It was easier to elicit the scale of visitation according to the number of carloads of
visitors who had come, e.g. three or four carloads of visitors staying at one time for
rodeo, show or funerals was elicited from some householders (M.I.4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 15).
This was translated as between 12–30 visitors maximum by a few interviewees (M.I.5,
21).
An example was given by a householder (M.I.15) with kinship connections to
Doomadgee of two or three car-loads of visitors. She said, ‘funeral time, big mob
come [from Doomadgee] for one or two nights then go back; two or three car-loads; a
few times a year [this occurs]’.
One observer gave a sense of the density of people sleeping in the house during Ray
Punch’s funeral: ‘When a lot of visitors here, just like little cattle pads. We got
mattresses’, thus giving the picture of wall to wall mattresses, some separated by a
gap of about 20 cm to make a walkway. This informant pointed out that it can be an
advantage having people stay as they help out financially (KM, 11/07/11).
Similarly M.I.7 reported that ‘had three car loads at a time—I bunk who I can. [Assume
12–15 visitors.] Sometimes they camp in yard under the gazebo’ [we observed two
double mattresses and a table under the gazebo]. Get up to two or three carloads of
visitors for the show, the rodeo and any big funeral’. She said they attended one to
three funerals per year; thus such large visitation events happened three to five times
a year. (M.I.7)
Large household formation patterns
Within the Mount Isa data, four distinct patterns of large household formation were
clearly visible, based on the nature of the visitation styles.
Pattern 1: Diurnal visitors from Mount Isa who stay overnight
This pattern involves a mix of both overnight staying adult visitors as well as daytime
adult visitors (M.I. 5, 6, 7). This pattern involves daytime visitors who then decide to
stay overnight by mutual agreement. The visitors come from other households in
Mount Isa, either by private car, taxi, or on foot. Such visitors include people who
come in the day to drink and who decide or who are invited to stay over; perhaps
some pass out and stay over (e.g. M.I.21) in the host’s house.
In M.I.5, the female householder’s son had come to visit from another Mount Isa
suburb the night before but required additional companionship. ‘Couple of people
55
slept last night, to sleep with my son—he has a mental problem. Jack and Gloria
asked to stay here with Jason last night.’ (M.I.5).
Overnight drinking visitors were reported in M.I.16: ‘A lot of young men come for a
drink and ‘crash’ out back. They don’t make any trouble. They’re all Dajarra and
Boulia people. Big mob inside now—all [daytime] visitors—came to have a drink. Lots
of young people. We have to hunt them away half the time.’ The researchers
observed the house inside to be totally packed with people coming and going.
Similarly M.I.10 stated: ‘soon as sun go down all come in just like cattle coming for
water…Maybe get 60 night visitors,’ and M.I.9 reported, ‘some people come at night;
camp on lawn or in lounge’. This is an example of what we later define in this report
as a ‘permeable household’.
M.I.16 reported hosting a set of nieces and their infants on weekends: ‘Five nieces
from Sue See Avenue come on the weekend [when] their father [the male
interviewee’s brother] kicks them out and they come and stay here—Jeff and
Lorraine’s girls. The nieces have kids—one has three kids.’ Also in M.I.3, the
household had a female adult visiting (kin) from another suburb who often stayed over
rather than walk back at night.
Pattern 2: Diurnal visitors from Mount Isa who do not stay overnight
The pattern involves daytime visitors only, with nobody staying overnight due to the
rules of the householder (M.I.12, 13, 21). This pattern may be in accordance with
either:
a drinking-allowed attitude
a drinking-not-allowed rule
a restrained-drinking-only rule (e.g. M.I.21).
For example, when interviewers visited M.I.13 (a household of 4 adults & 11 children)
at about 5.30pm, some 13 adult family visiting kinspersons and neighbours had
dropped in, and were socialising and drinking beer on the front veranda and in the
carport.
The household of M.I.18 reported: ‘Come drinking in day, stay for day. Friends come
for visit. Visitors on payday to drink in day, come home in taxi. Niece (Georgina) and
her 9 or 10 kids, they all come over; they keep mum happy to see the kids. Trevor’s
daughter comes over: Miranda and her two daughters; Edwina and her two kids
(boys). They just come and sit with me for the day.’ Their visit clearly did not create
any stress. ‘No problems from neighbours, they friends… It’s really quiet here at night,
no problems.’
Pattern 3: Visiting children from elsewhere in Mount Isa
This pattern involves hosting mainly visiting children who either stay for the company
of the host’s children or are left by relatives to be cared for by the householder. Thus
household M.I.13 had four adults and 11 children at the time of interview and the
householder said: ‘lot of kids all the time, cousins—come with parents for day visit and
don’t want to go home, so sleep over. Brothers and sisters’ kids, nephew and niece
kids. Kids whinge to come over. Or visit with parents and when time to leave, the kids
bail up, so stay. The most we had once was 23 kids. In school holidays it’s like that.
Sometimes they are left by relatives; or they are [local] school friends.’
For example, the householder of M.I.11 was a grandmother who was left with the
children of several daughters to care for, either for day visits or overnight visits. ‘Liza
leaves her kids here: two boys, two girls [4]. And Shayleen leaves hers: three boys,
56
one girl [4]; and Freddie: four boys, one girl [5]. All these kids get left here. [3–13].
Kids draw everything on walls, make mess.’ The householder said she spent the
whole of the previous evening cleaning the walls.
In the case of M.I.7 the household was composed of a couple and their nine children.
The female householder said: ‘The kids have their cousins and friends visiting all the
time—in the daytime, maybe six visiting kids—some are a local gang.’ There were 15
children present on the veranda at the time of interview, politely listening and well
behaved.
The female householder of M.I.8 who had her own four children, reported visitation of
her nieces and nephews:
Sister comes with her four kids, aged two to twelve (2, 4, 8, 12). Other sister
lives in town—her kids come over to visit—four kids. So can end up with
twelve kids. All girls sleep in one room and all boys in another room. Works out
okay till third day—too many and too much mess—girls clean up, but not
boys—start fighting one another.
Pattern 4: Visitors from the wider North West Queensland region and beyond
This common pattern involves hosting relatives for at least several days and often for
weeks, who come from various communities mainly from the wider North West
Queensland region. They either arrive by car, bus or plane. Such regional relatives
hosted while visiting Mount Isa from the wider region, but may have to wait across
paydays to get back (eg. M.I.14, 21). For example, M.I.14 reported: ‘Visitors come and
go, flake out around yard; come from Dajarra, Boulia, Camooweal, Lake Nash. Put
‘em in yard, they bring swags. When funerals, when Johnson or Cronin families come,
big mob come. This yard is so packed the day after a funeral; three or four carloads.’
A number of interviewees added in to the interview details of their reciprocal visiting
rights to the families involved in Pattern 4, although this was not a specific interview
question. Thus the householder of M.I.17 stated:
[Our relatives] don’t come here for Rodeo or Christmas. We go to them at
Christmas, stay with family then. We stay with uncle in a two-bed flat at
Doomadgee at Christmas. And cousin [mother’s brother’s son] in Doomadgee,
go and visit them, nothing much to do here.
3.1.2 Sociospatial principles of sleeping location
Five broad principles were evident in the interview data that guided how people were
arranged into sleeping clusters and allocated sleeping spaces, based on broad
kinship principles. Each will be described in turn.
Principle of division by gender and generation
Single visitors, whether children or adults were integrated with other single people in
the household and divided into different spaces by gender. In some cases this was
more complex whereby single people of the same gender were separated further by
generation and slept together, e.g. older single male adults versus male adolescents.
(reported at M.I.3, 7, 8, 21)
Girls sleeping together in one bedroom was reported in M.I.4, 16 and 17. In M.I.17,
this was said to be under ‘normal’ conditions. One room for girls and a separate one
for boys (children or teenager) was reported in M.I.7, 8, 9, 12 and 13. For example,
M.I.8, who regularly had visiting children mixed in with her own children, had boys and
girls in separate bedrooms.
57
Single men sleeping in one bedroom was also reported. The M.I.11 household had a
room for her son when visiting. M.I.16 had a single man in a bedroom and in M.I.12,
the ‘two bunjis’ (brothers-in-law) of the female householder had been allocated their
own room (a distancing principle here). A single man was reported in the lounge of
M.I.13; also in M.I.14, a man was in the lounge and on dialysis (an equipment issue).
Prioritisation of visitors for private sleeping rooms
A key principle of prioritisation was that visiting elderly people, mothers with babies
and children received priority to stay inside the house; while others had to stay outside
in the yard or on verandas or in carports or garden sheds when the numbers were too
high (e.g. single men, couples in tents). An example of older visitors being respected
in this way was in M.I.19, where ‘great aunties and uncles get a [bed] room or [stay] in
the lounge room’.
Young nuclear family or couple in bedroom given preference
A sub-principle of the above prioritisation principle was that visiting young couples
with a baby or infant(s) were given their own room. For example, the householder’s
son and his wife were allocated their own room in M.I.16, and in M.I.17, two couples
were in separate bedrooms. In M.I.2, a couple with a baby or infants were in one
bedroom, while a visitor nuclear family had their own bedroom in M.I.9. And a single
mother and son had their own bedroom in M.I.14, and also in M.I.16.
Early vacation of children to provide a bedroom for visitors
A recurring rule was that the boys of the household, who normally occupied their own
room, were moved out to the lounge so that adult visitors could take the boys’ room
(e.g. M.I.7, 21). Sometimes this role may be extended to young girls. For example,
M.I.16 had three grandchildren in the lounge (a household of 12 in a 5-bedroom
house). And in M.I.17, if visitors came, all the children moved into the lounge.
Two competing principles concerning sleeping location of householder(s)
Two diametrically opposed principles emerged concerning the sleeping place of the
head householders. Several such persons (all single householders) said they vacated
their bedrooms for visitors and slept on the lounge room couch (e.g. M.I. 1, 2, 3, 11),
whereas other householders said they retained the master bedroom exclusively for
self (and partner if relevant), irrespective of visitor needs or demands (e.g. M.I.5, 7).
An example was in M.I.2, where a single female householder and her two younger
sisters slept in the lounge, in front of the television and used the bedrooms for visitors.
In M.I.11, an elderly single female householder also slept in the lounge, watching
television at night. And in M.I.1, a female householder and her 12-year-old daughter
gave up their bedroom for visitors and slept in the lounge. One case was encountered
of an elderly female householder (M.I.14) who reported she slept in the kitchen in
winter to make room for others.
An example of a single householder alternating between bedroom and lounge room
included the householder of M.I.3, who said, ‘where they sleep, [they] organise
themselves. Girls sleep in my room. I let all the girls stay in my room and I just blanket
on couch. Boys sleep in own room’. The researcher’s Aboriginal field consultant, K.M.
(11/07/11) stated that the, ‘person of the house is usually in the lounge camp,’ but he
said he was not sure why and added ‘not by choice; kids put their stuff in bedrooms
when they arrive,’ i.e. visitors claim the bedrooms. He then reflected that ‘older people
always yarn up late in front of TV’ and that this was the case when he was a child.
Additional hypothesised reasons as to why householders with large extended families
resident, may prefer to sleep in the lounge room are to watch over household food
58
stocks in the kitchen and to deal with any incoming visitors during the night (be they
wanted or unwanted visitors).9
Examples of a householder couple remaining in their own bedroom, thereby
maintaining their privacy even when visitors arrived, were reported in M.I. 4, 7 and 12
and probably also occurred in M.2, 13 and 16. It was also reported by a single woman
householder in M.I.5.
A sleeping arrangements case study
Let us consider the case of M.I.17 to see some of these principles operationalised.
The householder reported that ‘normally there’s one room for girls, and one room for
boys’. The four bedrooms were thus occupied as follows: ‘one for Jane and Rickie
(the householder couple); one for all girls; one for all boys; and one for the other son
John and his partner (no kids)’. She added, ‘the nephew sleeps in the yard on a swag,
especially if he’s been out; he’s not a nuisance we don’t have problems with him’.
When visitors came, the rooms were said to be re-organised as follows: ‘the [visiting]
mother and father are given a bedroom. The children move to the lounge where they
stay with the visiting children, on mattresses. The sister gets a room with the niece
who stays here’.
3.1.3 Use of external spaces for sleeping and socialising
Some visitors arrived with tents or self-nominated to sleep on a veranda in an external
steel shed or carport due to their longstanding visitation expectations and practices
with their host. However, if there were too many people opting to sleep inside the
house, the householder may have to designate certain people to sleep outside in such
spaces, most commonly single men.
Use of veranda
Sleeping on verandas is commonplace in the outer communities of the region, but
appeared to be less so in Mount Isa, partly because it may trigger complaints from
neighbours and give rise to some embarrassment from strangers staring.
Nevertheless two examples were recorded. A man from Mornington Island who had
arrived late at night was sleeping on the veranda in M.I.3 when the interviewers
arrived around 9am; and an elderly female householder (M.I.14) said she slept on the
back veranda in summer to avoid being under the air conditioning (due to her
arthritis).
Use of driveway/ carport
Single men were found to be sleeping in driveways or carports, often inside
suspended plastic tarps in two houses, at M.I.6 and M.I.16. The householder of the
latter house said, ‘we live with extended family; carport is for playing cards [and] back
veranda and patio has mattresses’.
Use of backyard garden shed
Various tenants conceded it was against tenancy rules to stay in their standard
housing department pre-fab steel garden shed. However, some interviewees clearly
used same for visitors. Thus M.I.3 said, ‘want bigger shed at back for visitors—only tin
one—older boys can flag out in a shed. We get half tribe and can’t knock them back’.
M.I.1 accommodated a 21-year-old visitor from Boulia in their shed; an elderly visitor
couple were accommodated in a shed at M.I.4, and a male adult was reported
sleeping in a shed at M.I.6.
9 Compare to case of Walter Scobie at Mt Nancy Camp in 1986 who slept in his kitchen to watch over his
refrigerator (recorded by Memmott 1989, p.123)
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Use of outside yard tent
A good proportion of interviewees (e.g. M.I.4, 5, 9, 21) reported visitors (mainly from
south, south-west & west) using tents, but once again this violated housing
department tenancy regulations. Thus, M.I.4 reported an adult daughter and spouse
to use a tent when visiting. M.I.19 reported younger adult visitors staying in a tent.
M.I.10 had a tent with two cousin sisters and a male spouse; formerly camping in the
river bed.
The case of M.I.10 was instructive: ‘Joseph Kelly, he’s Ganggalida, was staying in
river when I pulled him out—now in tent in backyard; with Annie O’Malley. Here
couple of days in tent. Joyce [Annie’s parallel cousin] sleeps in the tent too. I don’t
want them old people to go anywhere. They got story to tell about country’. The
motive of the householder to encourage his relatives to leave the riverbed and stay in
his yard so as to minimise the risk of harm, seemed honourable. However towards the
end of the interview, a Housing Officer and a Police Officer arrived and instructed the
householder to dismantle the tent: ‘You got a tent out the back. What’s going on?’
….[indicating a breach of housing lease]. ‘Boss has had enough. No more. Are you
still on parole?’ However, when one of the research team re-visited the house three
days later the tent had not been moved.
Similarly the householder of M.I.14 was quite defiant about the tenancy regulation on
this matter: ‘[I] Get fined if let people sleep in shed. [But] I don’t mind getting fined for
old people [i.e. Bill and Rose who visited from Bonya occasionally]. They won’t sleep
inside [house], that’s their way, sleep outside, [they] show respect. We like to sit
outside. That’s our law. They show that respect’. The householder is here explaining
that the old couple choose to stay in the tin shed out of respect for the household in
order to provide them with relative privacy by distancing themselves during sleeping
time.
Sleeping in yard in swags
If spaces inside houses were full, some visitors practised bush camping style by
sleeping on swags on the open ground of the yard (e.g. M.I.4, 9, 17). In the case of
M.I.17, a single man was sleeping in a swag in a yard in which the fence was
screened.
Use of hearths and outdoor socialising/drinking places
Some tenants’ yards had been adapted and equipped for outdoor living, similar to the
norm in other bush communities (e.g. Long 2005, pp.176–179 on Dajarra). Household
M.I.14 thus had a kangaroo roasting pit in the backyard; the householder commented:
‘When we had Junior, he had a gun license; used to shoot roos and bring them back,
used to help out in a situation like that,’ referring to the large visitor influxes. Similarly
M.I.18 had a game roasting hearth in the backyard and gidyea wood for hot coal fires.
Visitors were seated under a large shade tree when drinking, with an outdoor bed
under the tree for day-time sleeping. M.I.7 was also reported to employ ground oven
cooking when Northern Territory visitors came with a kangaroo killed en route.
Another householder (M.I.3.) with a hearth seemed aware of the legal requirements of
lighting an outdoor fire ‘but got to ask neighbours and fire brigade for fire’.
3.1.4 Perceived absence of stress by about half of interviewees
At least six interviewees asserted categorically that there was no stress experienced
in their large households (M.I.2, 3, 9, 10, 17, 18) and another three indicated there
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was generally no stress except under occasional extremes (M.I.12, 13, 14).10 Thus
M.I.17 reported: ‘[they] come in for Rodeo, Show and funeral—same family mob each
time; Mum and Dad chuck in, they all do…not stressful’. The young couple in M.I.20
indicated they experienced no stress; describing their cooperative household and
recreational activities:
Not stressful, don’t get problems. People spread out. Someone’s always got a
car. Some people go out bush. Boys’ girlfriends help clean up, plus boys too.
Go out to the lake. Everybody chucks in, Joanne does the shopping.
Everybody helps, when they come, everybody pitches in…. But everybody
shares, tea bags, sugar, a smoke. Everybody shares. When visitors do drink
they go away to Irish club or the Overlander [Hotel]. We love a drink but no big
parties.
A householder from M.I.3 was asked ‘Do they get too piled up?’ by the interview team.
She replied:
Always okay—some can stay with Wendy [who lived two houses down from
M.I.3.] No crowding here—not really. Everyone happy stopping here. [I] get
upset when boys don’t listen—they get drunk. I hunt them away—stubborn
when drunk. I catch them when they’re sober—but they listen to me [then].
(M.I.3)
Householder M.I.5, originally from Dajarra was particularly insightful in describing the
kinship ethic involved of allowing demand sharing of the house and its facilities by kin.
Get a lot of daytime visitors, male and female, families. Visitors from Dajarra,
Bonya, Urandangi. Never got stressed out by visitors. Being an Aboriginal
person it’s a normal state of life. Never want to turn family away, one day you
might need them. Person being drunk and having a fight—it’s normal—see it
everyday life. Don’t worry me. They do fighting outside. We’re good-hearted
people—we like to share. You see other people. So private and protected of
their own space. If women with little kids, let them sleep inside—too cold
outside for kids. Mothers and children visiting stay in lounge. (M.I.5)
Similarly, a Mornington Island householder (M.I.2) alluded to her kinship obligations:
They come and go, I can’t say anything [meaning can’t refuse]. Stay for one or
two weeks then go home [to Mornington Island]. Come for check-up when little
bit sick.
This householder made no response to the question on whether she was crowded or
what crowding meant but she was clearly stressed by fighting—see later.
When the householder couple of M.I.16 were asked if they experienced any stress,
Rosemary said she kept good control, while Michael said ‘they know me!’, meaning
the visitors respect his word and know that he will not tolerate any disrespect of his
wishes. Similarly, M.I.12 reported that ‘visitors behave themselves, [have] good
control,’ and M.I.14 stated ‘visitors behave, no trouble; they listen, sit around campfire,
chuck in food’.
Being alone was perceived as a more stressful state than having visitors as indicated
by the elderly householder of M.I.11: ‘Get lonely sometimes, like visitors to come.
Have a cuppa. Visitors mainly in afternoon time. No trouble in this house. No crowding
here.’
10
Note that our study reports on self-perceived stress by interviewees. We did not conduct any physiological research to see if perceived stress correlated with symptoms of psychological stress
61
3.1.5 Issue of housing staff management of tenancies
The occurrence of householders being stressed by the imposition of tenancy
management rules was minimal even though housing officers regularly visited to warn
them of such. Thus M.I.7 stated: ‘Housing [department] mob only hassled me once….
when a neighbour complained about too many kids making noise, but brushed it off’.
And M.I.3 said: ‘Housing get upset when a lot of people; they tell me ‘can’t keep
people here’—I say “not staying long”.’ There were some exceptions however (see
later).
3.1.6 Perceptions of stress by other interviewees
Some interviewees agreed they were crowded but did not offer any details of specific
stress happening (i.e. a mild response), other than the need for a bigger house (M.I.5,
7, 14). This was the case of M.I.7 who did not concede any stress because people
followed her rules, but then admitted she was crowded. However, we took this to
mean crowding in the narrow sense of density rather than stress. She said:
Rule is ‘clean up after themselves’. They bring food or shop when here. No
fighting problems. Only Sharkey drinks—but he’s no trouble. Some visitors
have a drink. I drink. As long as they’re quiet. Murri people don’t care about
how many people all living under one roof. Let three carloads stay—didn’t
worry anyone. Nobody got upset. They slept anywhere.
M.I.14 in a three-bedroom house conceded: ‘Yeah, we’re crowded. Need a four-
bedroom house, but can’t get a transfer. It is stressing me out. Promised four-
bedroom house in December, but when it came up, not given to us. I gotta have a
spare room where others travelling through can stop—Alice Springs, Darwin
travellers.’
Some eight or so householders did identify specific stressful situations that had arisen
in the context of their large households when visitors stayed. These are described in
seven categories.
Visitors making noise when householder trying to sleep for next day’s work
A cause of stress reported in one household (M.I.4) was visitors staying up late at
night and making noise while the male householder who was employed in the day
was trying to sleep. His wife when interviewed agreed that ‘it gets crowded [and]
sometimes gets too hard. Some come back late at night to cook inside. Trying to
sleep—Jason trying to sleep, [he has to] go to work on weekend. Sometimes people
drunk. When lock gate, jump over fence. That’s why got cheeky dog. Single men walk
around in night—sleep in day.’ It is worth noting that Tangentyere Council architects
were once involved in designing a style of house in Alice Springs that could be divided
into two separate parts at night with an acoustic wall and hallway between, so that
sleepers could sleep and partiers party without disturbing one another.
Unwanted drunks imposing
Whereas a number of interviewees tolerated heavy drinking in their extended
households, possibly even participating themselves, several reported being stressed
by this behaviour. Thus, M.I.4 said:
We don’t keep drunks—tell them to go up the hill [Kangaroo Hill]. Just keep
families with kids. Some ask to sleep in backyard. They sleep with swags.
Sometimes on veranda. Three or four carloads might come [e.g. at rodeo]. Tell
them keep tidy—clean rubbish. Come with own money—chuck in….Too much
[visitors] at rodeo from Ampilatwij and Utopia—all nuisance. [They] hang round
Alice Springs after Harts Range race—. Then stringing this way [for rodeo].
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They’ll be at Johnie’s family house…at Soapy Bore—stay Exeter Street, all go
Kangaroo Hill [for drinking].
Similarly M.I.21 experienced stress:
At last Christmas, they did have visitors in other house. Gave that other house
up because of problem with the three big girls’ father—he’d let drunks in, loads
of people. Had house for two or three years. Couldn’t keep the drunks out.
Police would come nearly every day of the week plus weekends. Drunks used
to stay, camp there for the night if they were too drunk… About 30 people in
house, sitting in house drinking. Caused my marriage breakdown. Husband
would not tell drunk family to leave. I’d get sworn at if I said anything. We split.
Had to move to ‘Curry with my dad to get away from him. (M.I.21)
Another householder (M.I.10), who was clearly a heavy drinker himself, reported:
Night visitors [they’re] ignorant, won’t listen, when asked to leave. Start
arguing, try to get ’em out before they start up. Some young girls, want to
argue, can’t take notice of older person. Families [from particular places] give
you the shits, they won’t listen. [He contrasts] the boys from Lake Nash real
good, listen to you. (M.I.10.)
The worst aspect of heavy alcohol consumption is when uncontrolled drunken fighting
erupts; this was overtly mentioned by only one interviewee who simply said:
‘Sometime they upset me—drunken fighting that’s all’ (M.I.6) implying that this was
the only time she got stressed. This was a heavy drinking household with numerous
male visitors observed.
Stress from children fighting
Stress from visiting children fighting was also reported by several householders (M.I.8,
19). For example: ‘Jennifer’s kids drive me wild, too wild, too messy; make a mess of
the house. Jennifer’s too soft; she doesn’t know how to stick up for herself’ (M.I.19).
There is a notion here of the need for a householder to be firm with children, whether
their own children or those of other adults. In this case it is a young female
householder (in her 20s) who is said not to be firm enough.
Avoidance behaviour as a potential stress
One example was given by a female householder (M.I.4) of the tensions arising from
trying to maintain customary avoidance behaviours between her mother and her
husband. ‘Because mum come here and stay, Jeffrey not allowed to talk to her. In old
days can’t go near my brother or uncles— These days [they can] go anywhere—
Brother and sister can speak now.’ The householder is here commenting on the loss
of avoidance custom in the younger generation, but then she commented further on
her husband, saying that although there has been a relaxation of spatial avoidance of
proximity between mother-in-law and son, nevertheless he is not allowed to talk to her
when she stays. However, this could not be taken to be an extreme stress as the
householder seemed to know how to cope with the necessary sociospatial
restrictions.
Stress from lack of critical repairs and maintenance (R & M)
Stress was reported by many due to the lack of R & M in houses especially issues of
home security (locks & latches) and plumbing operation. This is discussed further in a
later section on the requests for R & M.
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Stress from people looking into the yard
Shame arising from people staring in from the street at one’s household and/or their
visitors, particularly when outside in the yard, was widely reported. A common
response to this was the erection of a screen of some sort on the fence to block visual
access. For example, in the house of M.I.6, a blue tarp was strung along the front
fence. When asked its purpose, the householder replied, ‘people stare in, black and
white’. The householder of M.I.21 reported that such screens were to ‘stop the other
family looking in and seeing the kids’.
Stress from pressure to conform to tenancy regulations
Although people often said that they were not stressed by their visitors they
sometimes reported being warned by housing department staff who were trying to
manage their tenancy according to the regulations and to get them to move out the
high numbers of visitors, including those breaking rules such as the use of tents in
backyards and the use of hearths without a permit. Few householders seemed
stressed by this pressure, perhaps due to the culturally sensitive management
approach and the option offered to visitors of accommodation at the Jimaylya Topsy
Harry Centre. When stress did occur, it was usually from a combination of neighbours’
complaints and housing office warnings.
M.I.9, in one example of coming under strong pressure from housing officers, gave
the following account when asked: ‘Is your house crowded or ok?’
OK. Rodeo time, bit crowded then, three or four carloads. Visitors behave all
right, don’t have to growl.11 Don’t get upset by visitors. One back neighbour
complained. Pushing me [signs hands together]—he make me worry. Had a bit
of argument with Housing—they came down here. Drunken noise. People
come visiting for rodeo, sometimes make noise. Housing give me notice to
leave—have to argue with them [re the neighbour’s complaint].
3.1.7 Strategies used to cope when stressed
The following strategies were outlined that allowed householders to minimise or
prevent stress occurring.
Strategy: Sending visitors on to another hosting kinsperson
A strategy that was clearly practiced by Alyawarr, Mornington Island and Dajarra
householders was to move excess visitor numbers on to other households who were
from the same home tribal group or community. This was not a matter of fobbing them
off to someone else but a clear agreed-upon strategy between a number of inter-
related households to equitably share out the hometown (or home country) visitors so
as to spread the load (so to speak). Thus we found four identified Alyawarra houses in
Mount. Isa, one of whom was said to ‘have a rough time’ from ‘young fellers breaking
door and take tucker’. Similarly a series of Dajarra households were identified who
took visitors from the south-west, viz. from Dajarra, Urandangi and Bonya (Northern
Territory) and a similar practice whereby one could send visitors to the next
kinsperson’s house. Thus M.I.5 said: ‘Everyone comes for a funeral—everyone
shares family—put people in different houses. I will send some to others if full’.
11
‘Growling’ is a term, frequently used in Indigenous Australia, to mean verbally chastising someone with just cause, usually to correct an inappropriate behaviour.
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Strategy: Household rules firmly administered
The young female householder of M.I.19 (with a partner and 6 children) conceded she
had been stressed by visitors but had learnt to discipline her visitors according to her
house rules.
Yes, my house is pretty much a half-way house! They come over for tucker,
pretend to visit but I know what they want, free food. Used to get stressed with
all the visitors but now I’m used to it. Used to get stressed but didn’t say
anything, keep the peace. I tell them straight away, they learn [the rules]….
Don’t allow alcohol around the kids—that’s a big no-no. So no problems with
big parties or things. All visitors know the rules and stick to them. (M.I.19)
Householder M.I.10 spoke of a male visitor out of prison and on parole. She said I
‘ask ‘em to clean up, [and] they help, chuck in money, feed [share food]. I keep
everyone under control.’ Another rule is evidenced here that was mentioned by many
interviewees that of contributing resources to the household, the ‘chuck-in’ principle.
Strategy: Protocol not to let one’s spouse manage one’s own visiting relations
Due to the experience of deep shame in prescribing strong behavioural rules to one’s
spouse’s relatives (e.g. to moderate drinking & noise), some couples had a protocol to
avoid this. Thus the female householder of M.I.4: ‘If [visitors] hang around too long
and stay—I get angry and chase them. Both of us talk to them [Ego and her husband]
—But Fred ashamed to talk to my family. So I tell Fred to talk to his family, and I talk
to my family.’
Strategy: ‘Hunting’ drunks away, including with dogs
To cope with unwanted visitors, householders had to learn to be selective in dealing
with obstinate drunk people, learning the technique of ‘hunting them away’. Thus M.I.4
said: ‘[I] had drunks pull up after food, in middle of night, [but] hunt them away’.
Keeping aggressive dogs was another strategy to discourage late night drunken
visitors. The female householder of M.I.15 discussed her efforts to chase away
drunks: ‘Iif they are drunk, I hunt them out, even if they are family; they understand
now’. She also locks the gate and has four savage dogs, but she said drunks have
come back at times with weapons to subdue the dogs.
Strategy: Mother-in-law avoidance issue
Only one householder (M.I.4) of Alyawarr identity with visitors from the Sandover
River communities reported the need to observe avoidance behaviour between her
mother and her husband.
Strategy: Spousal split up
This may seem an extreme method to cope with the stress of crowding, but when it is
accompanied by constant daily heavy drinking by the male householder and his male
visitors, and a subsequent range of family violence events, it may be the only option
available. Thus the female householder of M.I.21 had split up with her spouse, moved
to a shelter, wait-listed for a new house, and then obtained a more acceptable
spouse.
Strategy: Conscript the help of outside authorities
The householder of M.I.15 reported calling in the police for unruly visitors: ‘big mobs
were drinking here, [so] I called police in to break it up. People are different when they
get drunk; I don’t mind when they are sober but not drunk’. Similarly M.I.10 reported:
65
If too many [visitors], we ring police to remove them, but when police asked to
come, they don’t [always] come straight away.
One householder (M.I.15) conscripted help from another agent:
The river bed mob [the Riverbed Action Group of River Outreach Support
Services] helped us out, got the people out; [and] housing helped us out. River
bed organisation helped us chase drunks out too. It was good to have
someone else tell them to go.
Strategy: Use of visual screens on front fence.
This strategy involved adjusting the external physical environment with opaque
screens to generate a degree of privacy. In this manner covering materials of fabric or
cane were fixed on the side and front fences of M.I.6 and 8 for privacy, but were also
observed on many other houses as well (Figures 7–10). One tenant (M.I.16) who
erected screens on his fence reported that he was then made to adapt them to a
standard specification by the Department of Housing: ‘Gotta take all the screens off
the [outside of] fence and put them on the inside and cut them down to fence level.
Neighbours [white] from up the street complain when there are too many people in
front yard. That’s why we put up the screens.’
Enduring stress if no effective coping mechanism
The difficulties caused by large numbers of visitors may cause a build-up of stress for
a householder who does not have effective coping strategies but who holds high the
value of hosting visiting kin. Thus the female householder of M.I.15 revealed:
I do get worried and stressed with too many people. Can’t get the house clean,
make you wild. I just have to wait till people go away. You can’t growl at them
because they are family. They might think you are embarrassing them or their
kids. You can’t send them away. Don’t want to upset. You get worried but you
gotta put up with it… I’ve gotta provide mattress and blanket for them. I have
to provide food and rent for them. They want to eat off us. (M.I.15)
Figure 7: Aboriginal tenant’s makeshift fence screens, Mount Isa—also note veranda
screen
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Figure 8: Aboriginal tenant’s fence screen, Mount Isa
Figure 9: Tenant’s fence and veranda privacy screens, Mount Isa
Figure 10: Commercial privacy fence, Mount Isa
3.2 Neighbourhood stress problems
3.2.1 Case of a high-density Aboriginal suburb
When the researchers commenced the search for large householders in Mount Isa,
they were constantly referred by Aboriginal consultants to a place called ‘the Bronx’
which was an informal name for an urban area with a high proportion of Aboriginal
residents centred in the suburb of Pioneer, as well as including a central supermarket
67
and surrounding blocks in this suburb. Twelve out of the twenty-one interviews by the
authors were carried out in this area.
Once conducting interviews in this suburb, the predominance of Aboriginal people and
the high incidence of inter-household mobility (people constantly coming & going)
became very obvious, as was the high visibility of public intoxication. A small park was
noticeably an epicentre of public drinking as was a spinifex grassed hill at the back of
the suburb known as ‘Kangaroo Hill’. For example, the householder of M.I.4 reported
‘get Epenarra people come here; some go hill drink—Kangaroo Hill—Alyawarre
people drinking, stop and drink at park—White people can’t’.
Table 21: Indigenous-identifying people from selected 2006 Census data
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2007h, 2008c
A check was done of the 2006 Census data on the suburb of Pioneer. Table 21
indicates the high proportion of Indigenous people living in the Mount Isa Collector
District of Pioneer, almost 40 per cent, as compared to 15.5 per cent for Mount Isa as
a whole (2.3% for all of Australia, also see Figure 6). This confirms the intense levels
of Aboriginal social interaction in this part of Mount Isa.
An analysis of the interview results indicated that while most interviewees claimed not
to experience stress from their approved visitors, many experienced stress from the
random infringements of drunken behaviour on the streets of Pioneer. In Chapter 7 we
shall model this further as a state of ‘neighbourhood crowding’. But the supportive
data can be set out below. The householder of M.I.5 thus described her concern over
the unwanted nocturnal intrusion of drunks:
Lock gate up at night so people can’t get in. Some jump over fence when lock
gate—They can’t listen. Everyone comes past looking for a place to sleep
because it’s cold. In summer time they don’t come—they sleep in park. [Park
is over road]. Can’t lock front door. [A faulty glass sliding-door track]. Have
dogs out at night to keep people away, and chain on gate. (M.I.5)
One of her visitors referred to an unwanted intruder on the premises on the previous
night. ‘Someone come and shone a [torch] light on my face last night [through the
glass sliding door]’.
The household of M.I.6 outlined the stress arising from intoxicated people fighting in
the street.
Lot of people come in front of house—fight in street in front of our house—
[they] come here all time—Housing mob blame us. Lot of Dajarra people
around here [in the neighbourhood]. [The interviewee growls at a young man
passing.] I hunt them away if they play up here. (M.I.6)
A number of interviewees who lived in different suburbs to Pioneer made specific
reference to the ‘Bronx.’ For example M.I.16 said: ‘A lot of people come and stay here
68
with us to stay out of trouble because we away from town…. Not really [any trouble]
because we are too far out of Bronx for ‘em’. He added that ‘big [five-bedroom]
houses should be spread out over the [Mount. Isa] areas, not all in the one area [or
suburb] [and] offering for people to buy houses over in the Bronx. The householder of
M.I.18 who lived on the edge of Mount Isa reported that ‘Lake Nash visitors, just leave
their car here. They park their cars here, then go over the Bronx, because they [their
cars] aren’t registered’.
The householder of M.I.14 had a proactive response to people coming in off the street
at random. She said: ‘If motorcar in yard, passer-by drunks want a lift—People
humbug you for a lift to go home. [But] best to get them home, keep safe, run them
home [i.e. they comply]’. Note this household had two cars.
3.2.2 A reverberating inter-family feud
Another incident was recorded that qualified as a form of neighbourhood stress for
many families, the case of a reverberating feud between two extended families from
different tribal groups and areas in the North West region. This involved a family from
Mornington Island (predominantly 2 sisters, Jackie & Norma & their kin) versus three
inter-related families from Mount Isa/Camooweal [families X,Y,Z]. It arguably extended
to a neighbourhood crowding syndrome.
A central figure in the fight was the younger sister of Jackie, householder M.I.2; she
said: ‘In 2008, Norma had house here, big fight over nothing!’. Jackie noted that the
feud had erupted at times in her own house: ‘They used to fight here before—told
them to move out of yard. No real fighting here no more’. But then she added: ‘Last
month, [another] big fight [happened], all family had to be in it’. Jackie said: ‘They
need to fight with Norma—she just came out of Stewart Creek (prison), there nine
months’. Norma was able the find a house in a different suburb in an attempt to isolate
herself from her antagonists fighting her. ‘The fight is with [X, Y, Z families]; [norma]
still fighting with [Y] families. They’re fighting at my sister’s house,;they’re throwing
rocks—Vera [Y] throwing rocks’. An interview was then carried out with Norma (M.I.3).
She said: ‘Don’t like ex in-laws, [Z] family, don’t like them coming—they know not to
come or I’ll call police’. ‘My little gang, my little family—first husband was Billy [Z]’s
son. I have Billy [Z]’s eldest grandchildren—[but I] get on with Billy’. (M.I.2)
Mount Isa Housing Office staff have since then identified a second feud of similar
intensity and confirmed that these feuds have a destabilising impact on all local
tenancies. Many residents make applications to move away.
3.3 Requests for physical improvements to cope
Ablution facilities
Large extended households need at least two toilets and two showers, each in a
separate room, so that more than one person can be carrying out ablution activities
simultaneously. For example, M.I.16 said she ‘fought for improvements’ including
getting the bathroom and toilet separated. ‘This is a disability house, bath and toilet
are in together, would be better if it was separated.’
The householder of M.I.4, noted that ‘everyone has to wait to use the facilities’ when
she had visitors; also M.I.1 said everyone had to ‘line up for toilet; [I] kept going back,
[but] someone always there!’ In M.I.7, a household of two adults and ten children…
‘puts pressure on the toilet and shower— Routine on weekday is 6.30am rise and
shine, to 7.40 when all leave for work and school,’ i.e. an hour for twelve people to
take turns at using one bathroom and one toilet.
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Need for repairs and maintenance
There was a general need for minor repairs and maintenance, expressed by most
householders. The tenant in the co-op rented house (M.I.5) appeared to have the
worst R & M problems, saying: ‘It makes you depressed—house is that small—
owners won’t do any repairs, [but] gotta stay; nowhere else to go to. Rather have a
bigger house… should put veranda on house, fix up shower, door’. M.I.16 also stated
the need for wide ‘verandas like those [on certain homes] at Palm Island’.
Need for more storage
A wider distribution of cupboards in the house to provide more storage for visitors was
requested by the householder of M.I.3.
More accommodation in Mount Isa
More hostel type accommodation was prescribed by one interviewee (M.I.4), but it
was unclear as to whether this would help, as visitors were likely to persist in staying
with relatives. M.I. 4 said: ‘Some people come in for medical reason from Lake Nash
and nowhere to stay—sometimes to Pamela St Hostel’. However, the hostel was said
to be relatively expensive.
Several interviewees recommended more five-bedroom rental houses to be built by
the government, pointing out that there were only a small number of them in the
suburb of Happy Valley.
3.4 Summary of findings in Mount Isa
For the 21 interviews in Mount Isa, their household sizes at the time of interview
ranged from 1–19 with an average of 10 persons (total 210 persons), representing an
average of 3 persons per bedroom using a conventional density measure. These
household sizes increased when large numbers of visitors arrived. The scale of
visitation was given according to the number of carloads of visitors, e.g. often 3 or 4
carloads of visitors staying at one time, translating to between 12–30 visitors
maximum, with such large visitation events happening at least 2 or 3 times and
possibly up to 5 times a year.
Background to visitation
Visitation is in accordance with a regional sociogeographic mobility pattern, in keeping
with the well reported phenomenon of Mount Isa being the regional centre of an
Aboriginal cultural region with people having a range of places where they can live in
a ‘beat’ throughout the region.
One of the most frequent reasons why people came to stay was simply to visit their
relatives. This is in keeping with an earlier AHURI study of Aboriginal mobility in this
region (Memmott et al. 2006), in which kinship was found to be the key driver of
circular mobility. Accommodation of extended family for significant recreational events
in Mount Isa (viz. the Rodeo, the Show & AFL games) was given as one of the highest
scoring reasons for visitors coming to Mount Isa. The third most frequently given
reason for visitation was to attend funerals and participate in mourning and grievance
behaviour. Other common reasons for people from the wider region to stay with their
relatives in Mount Isa, was the need to obtain health services, and to carry out
shopping. Another category of visitors was comprised of those relatives who had been
recently released from Stuart Creek Prison. Once visitors were staying in Mount Isa,
their visitation could be unexpectedly extended for various reasons.
Large household formation patterns
Large household formation patterns were analysed into three categories:
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Diurnal visitors from within Mount Isa who only stay overnight.
Diurnal visitors who do not stay overnight.
Visiting children from elsewhere in Mount Isa, who either stay for the company of the host’s children or are left by relatives to be cared for by the householder. Visiting relatives from the wider North West Queensland region and beyond, requiring hosting for at least several days and often weeks.
Sociospatial principles in organising visitors
When household size expanded with visitors, people were found to commonly use the
lounge/dining room for sleeping as well as a range of external spaces on the
periphery of the house and in the yard, in addition to all of the bedrooms. The survey
sought to understand the sociospatial principles involved in clustering people into
these various spaces.
First, the principle of division by gender and generation prescribed that single visitors,
whether children or adults, were integrated with other single people in the household
and divided into different spaces by gender and age. Second, a key principle of
prioritisation was that visiting elderly people, mothers with babies and children
received priority to stay inside the house; while others had to stay outside in the yard
or on verandas or in carports and garden sheds when the numbers were too high. A
sub-principle of the above prioritisation principle was that visiting young couples with a
baby or infant(s) were given their own room. A further recurring rule was that the boys
of the household, who normally occupied their own room, were moved out to the
lounge so that adult visitors could take the boys’ room.
And finally two diametrically opposed principles emerged concerning the sleeping
place of the head householders. Several such persons (all single householders) said
they vacated their bedrooms for visitors and slept on the lounge room couch, whereas
other householders said they retained the master bedroom exclusively for self (and
partner if relevant), irrespective of visitor needs or demands.
In using external spaces for sleeping and socialising some visitors arrived with tents
or self-nominated to sleep on a veranda in an external tin shed or carport due to their
longstanding visitation expectations and practices with their host. However, if there
were too many people opting to sleep inside the house, the householder may have to
designate certain people to sleep outside in such spaces, most commonly single men.
Some tenants’ yards had been adapted and equipped with hearths for such outdoor
socialising and living, similar to the norm in other bush communities. There was a
common theme of people camping in their host’s yard, even cooking bush game in
ground ovens.
Perceptions of stress from visitors
Interestingly six interviewees asserted categorically that there was no stress
experienced in their large households and another three indicated there was generally
no stress except under occasional extremes. However, stressful situations were
reported by at least eight interviewees and included visitors making noise when
householders were trying to sleep for the next day’s work; unwanted drunks imposing;
stress from children fighting; stress from pressure to conform to tenancy regulations;
stress from people looking into the yard; and stress from lack of critical repairs and
maintenance.
A number of strategies were outlined that allowed householders to minimise or
prevent stress occurring:
Sending visitors on to another hosting kinsperson.
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Firm administration of house rules by householder.
Protocol not to let one’s spouse manage one’s own visiting relations.
Hunting drunks away.
Use of visual screens on front fences and verandas.
Calling police or other authorities when things get out of control.
Note that firm administration of house rules by householders included control of the
alcohol consumption behaviour of both regular householders and visitors,
encouraging visitors to contribute resources and turning away unwanted drunk
people.
Neighbourhood stress problems
Two forms of stress emanating from the other people in the wider neighbourhood
were recorded. While most interviewees claimed not to experience stress from their
approved visitors, many experienced stress from the random infringements of drunken
behaviour on the streets of the suburb of Pioneer. A second neighbourhood stress
problem was the case of an inter-family reverberating feud. This affected a range of
residents and extended to a neighbourhood crowding syndrome.
The requests for physical improvements to cope with crowding included additional
ablution facilities so that several people could bathe and toilet simultaneously; the
need for regular repairs and maintenance in general, and more accommodation in
Mount Isa, including hostels and five-bedroom houses.
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4 INALA LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS
As outlined in Chapter 2, Inala is an outer suburb of Brisbane with a relatively high
proportion of Indigenous residents (7.3%) compared to Brisbane overall (1.4%) the
total Indigenous population was stable around 950 persons. Aboriginal residents had
a strong positive sense of identification with their suburb (despite negative perceptions
from the wider Brisbane population) which contributed to a pattern of residential
stability. Inala was built in the early 1950s as an estate for lower income families and
persists in having higher-than-average levels of financial disadvantage. Aboriginal
families were among the first to be housed there (‘two or three Murris on every
street’), along with European migrant families, and it had become increasingly
multicultural with Vietnamese and Africans. Aboriginal residents originally came from
South East Queensland missions (Cherbourg, Purga, Myora), which had themselves
been government ‘removal centres’ for groups from all around the state. This was
reflected in the contemporary state-wide visitor patterns in Inala Aboriginal
households. In the order of 56 per cent of Indigenous Inala households lived in
government rental housing compared to 30 per cent of non-Indigenous households.
Indigenous residents competed on the waiting list for up to several years with other
high-need migrant groups such as African refugees, but often preferred to wait longer
periods to stay in Inala rather than take a short-term rental option in another suburb
where there was better supply.
This chapter sets out the findings from our interview survey of the 18 householders in
Inala who were reported to have experienced large household formation.
The content structure of the analysis in this chapter is identical to that in the previous
chapter, starting with a profile of the sampled households and their visitors, moving to
the nature of large household formation patterns and accompanying sleeping
arrangements and then addressing the nature of any perceived stresses around such
patterns and how households respond or cope with such.
4.1 Household profiles in Inala sample
Tables 22 and 23 set out the 18 household profiles that were sampled in Inala
differentiating by gender and separating children and babies, as well as dividing the
core household from those deemed as ‘visitors’ at the time of interview.
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Table 22: Profile of sampled Inala households—actual people present
*Interview No.15 is a revisit of No.4 when very crowded at Christmas time, but more family were due to arrive shortly
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Table 23: Profile of sampled Inala households—visitors present
Note: Assume adults aged 18 or over
Our brief to our Aboriginal consultants was to take us to households that had a
reputation of being large and/or known to experience large visitation numbers. This
latter criterion did not necessarily mean they were large households at the time of
interview but most were, with only two householders having less than five people at
the time of interview.
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Table 24: Sizes of Inala households at time of interview
Two sets of data on sleeping arrangements in rooms were collected for Inala,
following the methods used in Mount Isa, one set being where people said they slept
during their interviews, and the second set based on observations of bedding (and
sometimes sleeping persons) and information collected (and mapped on floor plans)
during a walk-through of the house with a householder. It was generally found from
the walk-through that more people were sleeping in the houses than identified during
the interview. The tables above are thus largely based on the observational data, with
some cross-checking from interview data. Note those figures do not necessarily reflect
the size of the household when it is perceived to be crowded.
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Table 25: Inala households’ distribution of persons in sleeping places–August 2011,
December 2011 and January 2012
* = Said to be used for visitors when they come
# This room was an enclosed veranda/sunroom and was weatherproof, but use as a bedroom blocked light from the lounge room
4.1.1 Household expansion—origins of visitors
The first category of visitors are likely to come from the historic home communities of
the householder. While many people consider themselves to be ‘Inala people’, ties to
home countries outside Inala and to former missions and reserves where family ties
became established in the 20th century are still strong. Table 26 indicates the home
community of the interviewees in the Inala sample. Most interviewees identified as
being from Inala, but also with the ‘set’ of places, reflecting their parents’ or
grandparents’ traditional or historic places, and other places to which their families
have an affiliation. Hence, the total number of home communities numbers far greater
than the 17 interviewees, as each have a ‘set’ of home countries.
The most commonly reported place affiliated to outside Inala for those interviewed
was Cherbourg, a former mission and important historic and home country place for
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many Inala people. Other places in the broader South East Queensland region such
as Woorabinda, Gayndah and Eidsvold (close to Cherbourg), were cited as home
places from which visitors may arrive. Kullilli country as a broad home country
affiliation was also cited frequently, but this also reflects the method of interviewing an
extended family group consisting of a family’s three adult siblings, and an adult
daughter/niece for this sibling group. This does allow us to see how the difference
between family members of a close extended group plays out with visitors and how
stress responses can be different at different times in the life course.
While people in Inala identify with home country communities outside Inala, most
people also identify with Inala as a significant place to which they affiliate.
Nevertheless, even people who are ‘from’ Inala have family and social connections in
the wider region, state and nation, where visitors can originate. One woman was able
to name places from Cairns to Melbourne and both coastal and inland New South
Wales as places where her visitors might originate (IN,5). The social affiliations built
up in historical locations such as Cherbourg and Woorabinda (both missions of the
20th century) give many Inala people a large geographic visitor base, as people have
moved from these settlements all over the eastern parts of Australia.
Table 26: Identified home community of interviewees
Where people have identified with more than one home country place they have been listed separately and thus the number of home country places is greater than the number of interviewees.
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Figure 11: Map of home communities
4.1.2 Sociogeographic exogamy
There were eight out of seventeen interviewees who had a spouse. Of these, six had
a spouse from a different home community to their own, or the spouse was not
Indigenous. The combinations were as follows (interviewee’s home community first,
then that of spouse):
IN. 7: Kullili country and Cherbourg/Charleville and Gunedah, New South Wales
IN. 9: Kullilli country and Cherbourg/another community not divulged by spouse
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IN. 10: Kullilli country and Cherbourg/Inala and Mackay
IN.13: Palm Island and Woorabinda/another community not divulged by spouse
IN.14: Laura/white spouse
IN.18: St George/white spouse
Many interviewees were not forthcoming about their spouse’s home country
connections, reflecting a high level of separation and re-partnering among the
interviewees.
4.2 Reasons for visiting causing household expansion
A question was asked about why people had come to stay or visit over the last year
and the responses have been compiled into Table 27. Like the Mount Isa
respondents, many people gave generic statements about why visitors come and
these were not included in the table unless they were linked to a specific event.
People found this question very difficult to answer, indicating that a ‘reason’ to visit
may not be required for many people; that visiting is an end in itself, so widely
understood in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities that the question
at times seems absurd to the research participants. The table is thus an indicator of
the drivers of visiting, rather than a specific set of instances of visitation.
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Table 27: Reasons for household visitation
Note: Some informants provided generic statements about when or why visitors come, but these were not included in the above table unless they could be linked to a specific event. Generally this question was poorly reported, with not all events reported, as particular events merged into generic events. Hence, this is not an objective measure of all visits but rather indicative only of the type and intensity of visitation drivers.
4.2.1 Permeable houses
One of the most commonly-cited causes of visitation was the desire to spend time
with family. This can be both planned and spontaneous, but the idea of offering a
generous location of sociality to one’s family was key to many people’s identification
as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, and was seen as an essential aspect of
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Indigenous culture. Visiting was seen as synonymous with helping family and friends,
and that visitors would receive hospitality in whatever form they required when
visiting. One Inala woman explained that this occurs both on the daily level with local
visitors: ‘We have lots of visitors coming by, both family and close friends. People just
pop in for a yarn, come in to see what’s happening’ and with people who have
travelled greater distances and stay for longer periods of time: people just show up
when they come and stay, they don’t let you know first’. She also pointed out that this
was a core value: ‘we help each other out’ (IN.4). This helping through providing a
generous home is an important principle that many people lived by.
Some people let their houses be used by people who are public place dwellers
(Memmott et al. 2003) who need a permanent address to collect mail or have food
and bathroom facilities. Others take in those who are recently released from the
nearby prisons or watch house, as they plan their next move into the community
(IN.1).
Others had a truly open house policy stating: ‘If I can help anybody, I will’ (IN.5)., ‘My
home is their home’ (IN.3), ‘I’d never turn anyone away’ (IN.6) and ‘anyone is
welcome here, anytime’ (IN.1). This last statement was from a householder who,
several years ago when I visited her one morning, had a man sleeping on her sofa in
the lounge room, his face hidden in his sleeping position. I asked her who that was
and she said she didn’t know, but that he obviously needed somewhere to sleep. She
would find out the story when he woke up, she said. One of the authors (K.G.) has
termed this kind of approach to running a house, permeability (Greenop 2009). For
many householders this is a given and when asked about this kind of informal
permeability, one woman looked perplexed and asked me: ’Well, don’t you just go to
your Mum’s whenever you feel like it?’ This reciprocal generosity of household space
for visiting, not just to stay, but to have company is an unselfconscious value that is
ingrained in people from an early age. This household permeability is extended to
non-Indigenous people (and was extended to me during earlier research in Inala) as
part of growing closeness and is seen as part of one’s basic needs.
The principle of demand sharing (Peterson 1993) is clearly at work here and
reciprocity is well understood by all who offer generosity. Nevertheless, those who
have a greater capacity for visitors, are expected and understand themselves that
they take on more visitors or offer more hospitality than those with less capacity.
4.2.2 Funerals and grieving
Funerals caused a great deal of mobility and visiting for Inala Indigenous households.
Most people stated that they had large numbers of people coming to visit them when
funerals occurred, unless their house was newly established and not well known
among the family, or they were based away from their usual family groups and thus
funerals were not held for their family in Brisbane, in which case they were part of the
visiting group travelling to funerals in their home country. Funerals, like other kinds of
visiting, also induce both overnight staying, and daytime visiting, to pay one’s respects
to the bereaved family.
These daytime visitors can require food, seating, and space to undertake the proper
forms of paying respect, and a household is considered open to the community at this
time. Some households found these daily visitors were numerous and the mourning
period in which this occurred lasted for weeks.
For two weeks people were here for the grieving time, coming to sit around
and see people. Even those who didn’t stay here, but they stayed all day
(IN.5).
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In terms of overnight visitors, she said: ‘the largest group was 20–30 people extra
staying, just for one or two nights. They also spread out to sleep at [my daughter’s],
but they all gathered here for a feed and to see people’ (IN.5). The visiting of the
family usually begins from the time that people hear the news of the death until the
funeral, or when visitors return to their homes following the funeral. Nevertheless,
sometimes people do stay on, as noted below.
When a death is truly unexpected or a young person has died, the mobilisation of
people in response can be huge.
When [my son] died, 200 people came from Mackay and booked out the motel
at Oxley and bunked in anywhere they could. I couldn’t count them, I woke up
and there were [sleeping] bodies everywhere. And some of them just stayed.
(IN.12)
This ‘staying’ in this case lasted more than a year, with this woman stating that her
son’s friends felt comfort in his perceiving his presence at the house, and were
concerned to offer her company in her time of mourning. Their status as his close
friends meant that they were entitled to stay on, for as long as they liked.
While the permeability of households is a cultural given, it can still lead to stress for
householders if the house cannot physically cope with the number of visitors, or
accommodate their needs for privacy, particularly given the added emotional stress
that occurs at times of bereavement. One woman, discussing her partner’s cousin-
brother’s funeral time, commented that: ‘It can get draining on the family with so many
visitors’ (IN.14).
4.2.3 Additional family obligations
Additional obligations to house people occur at happy times, such as parties for
birthdays, special wedding anniversary events and other social occasions. This can
sometimes lead to problems with visitors drinking and becoming rowdy or violent, but
many householders were very successful at managing these situations.
Caring for family on a more long-term basis can also lead to household expansion.
Fostering children from the extended family on a medium-term basis was seen in four
cases. These children may be considered as sons and daughters rather than nieces
and nephews due to kinship ties, and as such are entitled to stay and be cared for by
relatives. One woman was fostering five of her nieces and nephews whose parents
had been evicted from their house and were unstable. Despite the children being
relatively difficult to settle into her already large household, she said: ‘I decided to take
them on because they are family’ (IN.9). Additionally, teenagers are relatively
autonomous and may choose to spend weeks or months staying with relatives
because they are close to their cousin-siblings, their grandparents or aunt-mothers
and uncle-fathers. The tensions between parents and teenagers are sometimes
diffused by teenagers moving long distances to towns outside Brisbane, but also
across the suburbs to other houses within the family where tensions are lesser, or
where more autonomy is granted.
Similarly, those seeking refuge from marital disputes sometimes stay with family or
friends until tensions die down, or a disgraced spouse is forgiven.
The longest-term obligation to family occurred in cases where people were staying
with relatives, waiting for state housing to become available. This was in some cases
years’ worth of waiting, such that a household had become permanent in an
arrangement that was only originally temporary. In some cases when this causes too
much stress, people move from one family household to another in a pattern of
circular mobility trying to spread the load as well as meet kin obligations to visit family.
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4.2.4 Housing shortage in Inala
While many people found themselves with long-term visitors in Inala, this reflected a
micro-scale housing shortage in both government and private housing in the area.
Many people commented that they were on the waiting list for housing, or had their
long-term visitors waiting for housing and that the lists were extraordinarily long, with
waiting times of years to obtain a state house. This is at odds with recent press
coverage of empty state housing in Queensland (Courier Mail 2012), and reflects the
desire of many people to obtain housing in the Inala area, and not elsewhere in
Brisbane where vacancies exist. The importance of staying close to family,
Indigenous-specific services and participating in a fulfilling Indigenous sociality was
cited as important to people in obtaining a house in the area. Some had taken housing
in other areas such as Goodna, a nearby suburb, but had found the social isolation
too difficult to cope with, and had taken pains to return to Inala, despite the situation
feeling crowded and stressful (IN.10). It would seem that for some people the need to
be within a particular area and close to social networks is more important that stress
caused by crowding.
4.2.5 Stress and large numbers
Elders, householders and young people are often able to control rowdy guests.
However, there is a pattern where young householders (usually young women in their
early 20s) find dealing with visitors who are staying more stressful than established
householders who have either earned respect or who are perhaps somewhat feared.
Three contrasting households exemplify this. The first is a young woman who lives
with her nuclear family in her uncle’s house, but for which she is responsible. She has
recently moved back to Inala and comments: ‘Inala is good, it’s close to family, but a
bit too close’. When visitors don’t help out and the house becomes untidy this woman
becomes stressed, ‘I go off my head...I’m always growling, I have to say it a couple of
times to get them to listen’ (IN.10).
A more long-term householder, who was also more experienced in how to run a
house and was in her 40s commented that she does find the lack of routines when
visitors come stressful, the kitchen and household tidiness becomes difficult to
maintain. She says ‘I soldier on...I wait until they are gone to re-establish my routine. I
go to my room to cope, it’s my sanctuary’ (IN.8). When drinkers get rowdy, ‘I tell them
to shut up!’ (IN.8) and this is sufficient.
The third householder does not ever have a problem with visitors who are staying.
She is in her 60s and has lived in that house for decades, and is very strongly
connected to a large family and social network in Inala. She has an immaculate house
with pristine furniture, many artworks hanging on the walls and precious objects on
display. Yet she does have many visitors and no trouble maintaining order. ‘I don’t
need to growl at people. Only my own children’, she laughed (IN.11). She did admit to
feeling stressed during the funeral of her grandson when she had ten visitors staying
in the house in additional to the usual five residents, but stated that she ‘just coped’.
Additionally, the presence of children did not bother her, despite the tidiness of her
house. As we sat talking, her daughter arrived with several toddlers in tow, whom she
encouraged to look at her photos and special objects, she was not worried that they
would break things, she said, they just have to be shown how to do it and they would
be fine. For this woman, inclusivity, and sharing of her house and possessions with
her extended family is clearly a priority, as is leading by example in terms of tidiness
and order.
Stress from crowding may change over the lifecycle of a person, and according to
their developing or diminishing coping skills. Personal factors such as parenting small
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children, a recent bereavement, or family violence naturally seem to add to stress
from large numbers in a house, as do physical factors in the house such as problems
with house infrastructure (e.g. inadequate numbers of toilets & bathrooms for all
residents & visitors), maintenance problems (e.g. broken kitchen stoves or bathroom
fittings) or faulty design (e.g. bathrooms that persistently grow rampant mildew
because of poor ventilation that cannot be fixed)
4.2.6 Visitor scale
It was very difficult to ascertain accurate numbers of visitors from householders. There
may be a cultural norm of not being seen to be counting the number of people staying,
as it might imply being too sensitive about who stays and therefore being ungenerous.
While some people could state the number of ‘carloads’ of people, (with a carload
approximating 5 people), others chose the terms ‘chock full’ to indicate that their
house might be at complete capacity.
While some households were more established and were more often ‘chock-a-block’,
others had sporadic visits of fewer people. Many people did not seem to count
numbers but stated that ‘if they need to sleep, they’ll rest wherever’ (IN.3) or ‘they all
squash in’ (IN.4) indicating that the capacity of the house was more directly
determined by people’s willingness to engage in sharing behaviour, rather than the
physical limits of the house itself.
4.2.7 Large household formation patterns
Pattern No.1: Daytime adults and children visiting
This pattern was commonly found in Inala and involved people coming to visit during
the day for social reasons and perhaps shared meals. Many people would come by to
other’s houses to catch up on local and family news, see their families and perhaps
receive money, cigarettes, alcohol or food from their hosts if they did not have any or
enough of these. People arriving and asking what others were cooking for dinner or if
they were going to the shops, was common. Those undertaking shopping probably
had money that others may be able to borrow.
Pattern No.2: Regional relatives hosted
While visiting Inala from the wider region, relatives may have to wait across paydays
to get back to their more permanent residence. These relatives are entitled to stay
under kin obligations.
These visitors may also arrive spontaneously as in the above category, despite the
large distances they may have travelled. If the householder is not home when they
arrive, then the visitors can move on to another house within their social or kin
network and make arrangements at a later point to visit or stay over once they have
located the householder.
Pattern No.3: Children visitors who stay overnight, including teenagers
Many older children and teenagers are relatively autonomous in their choice of
household in which to sleep within their extended family network. It was seen as
positive to stay with one’s grandparents, cousin-siblings or aunties, and indeed people
cited that parent-child tensions are relieved through these practices of staying with
those other than parents. Grandmothers cited that their teenage daughters would
come to stay if they were arguing with their mothers, and that they would counsel and
accommodate them during this time.
Even young children were often encouraged or keen to stay and continue playing with
their extended family, especially cousin-siblings or to stay with their extended
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grandparent generation of family. These younger children were often babysat
overnight by their grandmothers when their parents, often still in their 20s, would go
out on a Friday or Saturday night with their friends.
Pattern No.4: Mix of day visitors and overnight stayers
Sometimes people come to visit and begin drinking, then become too intoxicated to
return home and will ‘crash out’ at the hosts’ house for the night. Others, particularly
young single mothers or those whose partners are drinking elsewhere, encourage
their friends or sibling-cousins to come over and stay the night to keep them company.
4.3 Sleeping arrangements principles
Several principles were noted in how sleeping arrangements were organised in
households where space is a premium.
Principle of division by gender and generation
Bedrooms were shared by those who shared the same generation and gender. Sister
or male sibling-cousins would frequently share a bedroom or other space for sleeping.
The idea that ‘all the girls are in this room’ and ‘all the boys are in that room’ works for
many households, especially when children are not yet teenagers. More complex
arrangements are made when teenagers are present, with teenage boys in particular
often sleeping in a lounge room, particularly if there is only one. Larger numbers of
male teenagers may need a separate bedroom to contain their noise late at night.
Prioritisation of privacy for visiting couples or families
Visitors are often given their own private place to sleep, although this depends on the
age, status and needs of the visitor. Long-distance visitors who come less frequently
are accommodated differently to local, regular or spontaneous visitors who sometimes
‘sleep wherever’. Aged people were given high priority in line with their frailty or health
needs for quiet, or warmth inside. Teenage friends on the other hand are expected to
find themselves somewhere suitable and not expect special treatment. They may
have to share a space with younger children of the same gender.
Young nuclear family or couple in bedroom given preference
Visiting families or couples are often given their own bedroom in which to sleep,
especially if there is a young baby who may need to be attended to in the night or
small toddlers who can fit in with their parents, making a bedroom in a place for an
entire nuclear family. Older couples of a grandparent generation are often shown
respect by being given a bedroom to themselves.
Early vacation of children to provide a bedroom for visitors
Children are moved to make way for those with a higher need for privacy. This can
occur on a semi-permanent basis with children sleeping in the lounge of their parent’s
bedroom on a regular basis as in IN.14.
Householder keeps their own bedroom (particularly a conjugal couple)
In a complex addition to this set of principles, it was common in Inala for a couple to
insist that they kept their own bedroom when visitors came. Some permitted children
to sleep in with them during peak visitor numbers, but others maintained it as a private
space, especially as a place to escape when stress levels were high. While this may
seem to contrast with ideas of sharing, such a coping strategy can allow the
householder to maintain their acceptable stress levels and thus allow the high
numbers to continue, whereas a further loss of privacy may lead to the whole
household becoming non-viable.
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Sleeping patterns
Single householder use of lounge/living room.
Single householder alternates between bedroom and lounge room.
Young nuclear family or couple in bedroom.
Use of veranda.
Use of driveway/carport.
Use of backyard garden shed.
Use of outside yard tent.
Householder couple remain in own bedroom.
Visitors in lounge.
Girls in one bedroom.
Men in one bedroom.
One room for girls, one for boys (children or teenagers).
Single men outside.
Sleep in kitchen.
Young children in lounge.
Older people visitors respected.
4.4 Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees
Many householders in Inala did not feel stressed despite large numbers of people in
their house. Ten out of the seventeen (IN.1–6, 8, 11, 16 & 18) householders
interviewed did not consider that their house was crowded, but many instead said that
they ‘coped’ with large numbers and used strategies to make sure that the house was
able to accommodate large numbers. For many, this reflected not only a value of
demand sharing, but identification with an Aboriginal way of life that involves frequent
intense sociality, and the reinforcement of relationships through sharing of housing
and time spent together.
When discussing whether large numbers were stressful, many stated problems with
the house as contributing to stress, rather than the effect of many people being in the
house, reflecting a desire for people to be together and accommodated in a suitable
fashion, rather than a desire for people to be accommodated elsewhere.
Case study/Vignette IN.4/15 (visit & re-visit during maximal crowding)
One householder was visited twice, once in August when the house had 10 people
staying, and once in the week prior to Christmas when large numbers of visitors were
arriving from North Queensland and 17 people were staying, with three more
expected immediately prior to Christmas (see Figure 12 for diagram of house at
normal & maximum levels of occupation). This householder, a woman in her late 40s
who has children and grandchildren staying in her house, as well as siblings and
nieces and nephews on a rotating basis, had a five-bedroom house that she waited
for many years to be allocated. In August the householder had not perceived stress or
crowding, but stated that they had felt crowded at other times. ‘We help each other
out’ she stated, but then added with a wry grin: ‘They always seem to stay with me!’
She noted that her coping skills for large numbers in fact added to the numbers who
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would stay in her house. ‘I tell them off straight. People don’t party here. That’s what
they’ve got pubs and clubs for, not in your own home’. The orderliness and availability
of food, television and clean accommodation make this house very popular with family
who are visiting Brisbane. In this case the coping strategies operate to cement the
house and householder as a desirable house for visiting in.
This was borne out at Christmas when an additional seven people were staying and
more were due any day. The large number were accommodated and considered part
of the celebration of Christmas and facilitated children and young people to see their
families, valued as an important aspect of identity and culture. ‘My mother’s like a big
teacher for everyone, so they all come over’ stated the householder’s adult daughter,
indicating that not only long-distance visitors, but locals would come at these times to
see the North Queensland family and hear stories and share knowledge. Cooking up
a big stew to feed many people and planning days out to South Bank Parklands or
local swimming pools was also part of the fun of having many children around at this
time of the year.
While this time of year was perceived as crowded, with many people sleeping in the
lounge room, stress was also downplayed, with coping mechanisms emphasised:
‘some will go to a cousin’s house for a few days and come back’ if the house cannot
cope with the numbers. Knowledge that this was a very temporary state of affairs,
based on the Christmas holiday period, also helped the householder and other
residents cope with the crowding. Kids fighting and playing repetitive video games
were cited as some of the few factors that caused stress, because other behaviour
that often caused problems, such as drinking and adults fighting simply did not occur
at the house, in accordance with the householder’s rules.
Importantly, this householder is regularly the recipient of reciprocated hospitality in
Cairns when she travels with her children and grandchildren to see family there and
attend the biennial Laura festival. She travels with a large group, of up to 15 people
including children who are accommodated among the family houses in Cairns.
What seems to be important to this householder is the maintenance of family ties, the
provision of a place in which the family can gather, celebrate and share company, and
the reinforcing of an Aboriginal way of life, where family comes first. The pay-off is the
kudos associated with being at the centre of such gatherings, and the satisfaction of
doing the right thing, growing up children the right way, and ensuring that they will
care for one another in old age.
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Figure 12: Example of sleeping arrangements in Inala, of a core (or base) household—
total of 10
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Figure 13: Example of sleeping arrangements in Carnarvon, adapted to accommodate
visiting kinspersons the week before Christmas—total of 20
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4.5 Causes of perceived stress by other interviewees
While many people did not perceive stress with large numbers, some others did,
mainly caused by the behaviour of their visitors, or the house being unsuitable for
such numbers despite a desire to accommodate them.
Some people felt extreme stress including one woman householder IN.9, who has in
the past year accommodated up to 14 people in her three-bedroom plus downstairs
rumpus room house on a semi-permanent basis. This had caused extreme stress
because of the work to maintain the house in a reasonable organised fashion. The
householder had been a foster carer for five of her nieces and nephews whose
parents were unable to provide them with stable accommodation after being evicted
for continual fighting at their Queensland Housing residence. These children were
taken in ‘because they are family’ but had proved difficult to have in the house: ‘It
stayed stressful the whole time they were here, for four months’, she stated, ‘iIt was
like re-training them, I had to growl at them the whole time, it was stressful’. These
five children, aged 2–9 years, slept in the lounge room as all other bedrooms were
already full.
Eventually child safety raised a number of ‘matters of concern’ with the householder
including for smacking the oldest child who was caught stealing, and not having
adequate window bars to prevent small children from climbing out. The house, that is
owned by a Brisbane Aboriginal community housing organisation, is in urgent need of
repair and has only one bathroom operational (a downstairs bathroom is in need of
repair so severely it cannot be used) and other problems such as large holes in the
plasterboard walls, and a bathroom tap that cannot be turned off and severe mould
that recurs in the bathroom. ‘It’s like living in a squat’ stated the householder, who had
paid for kitchen repairs herself after a lack of response from the housing authority over
months. The stress of numbers seems to be increased by inadequate facilities in
houses, despite people’s desire to accommodate family and provide a haven for those
in need. In the case of IN.9 this tension between the limitations of the poorly
maintained house and the obligations that the householder wants to be able to fulfil
would appear to be the main cause of stress. Similarly, IN.17 had seven people in her
house, but the very cramped spaces meant that children could not play without
bothering adults and storage of clothing, toys and medicines became real issues
creating stress for the aging householder.
For others who had relatively well maintained houses, stress was still evident as their
lack of authority meant that behaviour was out of the bounds that the householder felt
was acceptable. Uncontrolled use of water and electricity, resulting in high bills for the
householder caused stress. A young woman in her 20s at IN.10 stated that not being
crowded would be defined as only having ‘my little family’ here meaning her partner
and children. She was fostering two of her Uncle’s children aged 10 and 11 and this
was causing stress due to their rowdy behaviour and her relative lack of authority, as
they are the same generation as her. She decided to foster the two cousins because
she felt obliged to help and the house was being lent to her but was in another Uncle’s
name, so was considered a family place, rather than her own. She had previously
been in Ipswich but had moved back to Inala ten months before the interview after
problems with her neighbours and a lack of family support in the area. ‘When we were
in Ipswich, we got no visitors, but now we get them all the time!’ she commented,
adding ‘:Inala is good, family is close, but a bit too close’. Her youth and her lack of
experience in controlling behaviour in her house (including her partner’s friends who
ate & slept at the house frequently) caused her stress.
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Factors that commonly caused stress were:
Untidiness of visitors.
Disruption to normal routines of cooking and cleaning.
Stress caused by costs associated with visitors (e.g. electricity bills, food bills).
Physical limitation of house capacity (e.g. ‘stepping on people to walk to the kitchen’ (IN.14), queuing for bathroom use).
Drunken fighting.
Kids fighting because of limited space to play.
4.6 Strategies used to cope when stressed
Five diverse strategies were identified in the Inala interviews that are used by
householders to respond when large numbers of people are creating stressful
situations in their houses.
Use of tents in the garden.
Calling police (to evict fighting or drunk visitors).
Retreating to bedrooms or another house if visitor numbers are becoming stressfully large and/or behaving badly.
Patterns of circular mobility (similar to Birdsall’s beats & runs in Western Australia (1991)) where people move to family in another town when a household, or individuals within a household, become stressed.
Becoming proficient at ‘growling’ (disciplining people using anger) so that visitors behave. This is well developed in older women who are household heads and thus they feel less stressed, younger women are frequently still developing this and find it stressful trying to assert authority at a young age and with limited backup. As their children age they are more able to ‘back them up’ and this aspect of a maturing family may help assert authority.
4.7 Neighbourhood stress problems
Most people in Inala did not state that they encountered problems with their
neighbours. They said that people who had problems with their neighbours tended to
move until they found a location where they got along with their neighbours, and many
said that they tried to work with their neighbours, communicating with them about
visitors and parties in order to keep relations harmonious. Some people stated that
they had ‘no problems with neighbours—they are all Asians with crowded houses too!’
(IN.9). This highlights the solidarity many Inala people feel with their culturally different
neighbours who are nevertheless of similar economic status. While cultural practices
do vary on some levels, many of the non-Western cultures such as Vietnamese,
Pacific Islanders and African people who live in Inala perhaps share values of
household permeability and an ethic of sharing.
A few people did have neighbour problems such as one woman whose racist
neighbours verbally abused her children and other family on a regular basis (IN.14),
and another family who had been evicted on the basis of neighbours’ complaints
about persistent domestic disputes over many years, to which the police were called
every day (IN.7).
Most stated problems with neighbours, either current or in the past, related to noise
from children playing and fighting, or from rowdy or violent drinkers. One other woman
stated that her upwardly mobile neighbours had complained about the noise from her
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house, a very crowded situation with seven people living in a two-bedroom house.
She said that they had signed a petition to have her removed but ‘I fight for my rights
to stay’ (IN.17). She had, however, toned down the music playing and gatherings, but
complaints to the housing authority were still being made, if no longer to the police.
A few householders did state that they would sometimes call the police themselves
because they were disturbed by their neighbour’s noise. One woman relocated from
Ipswich back to Inala, following ongoing problems with her drug addicted neighbours,
about whom she regularly phoned the police (IN.10).
Strategies used in response to neighbourhood stresses can thus be summarised as
follows:
Become friendly and work on relationships with neighbours, of all cultural groups. Communicate with neighbours if there is a party planned and be seen to be trying to keep children and visitors under control.
Move house until you find you are in a neighbourhood without problems and with compatible neighbours.
Talk back to racists (e.g. IN.14).
Phone the Police (e.g. at the former residence of IN.10).
(by Queensland Housing): Sell houses that have had problem tenants and neighbourhood complaints (e.g. IN.7 house has been put on the market by Queensland Housing after a family with domestic violence problems had been evicted).
4.8 Requests for physical improvements to cope
Having additional people in bedrooms designed for only one or two children means
that the storage of clothing, games, and other items becomes very difficult as rooms
cannot accommodate the numbers sleeping within them and all their storage needs.
Many families have cupboards, large plastic storage boxes and washing baskets full
of clothes inconveniently located in the living areas of the house because there is
nowhere else to put these items. Storage of items such as bicycles, scooters and
other items that can promote active lifestyles or transport is often not possible
because garages are often not provided in most state rental houses, or if they are,
people are using them as bedrooms.
Ablution facilities
Most houses in Inala have just one bathroom despite very high numbers of both
residents and visitors. Exceptions are ‘disability houses’ (as they are known by locals)
and the very rare five-bedroom houses that both have two bedrooms, although
‘disability houses’ have a second bathroom that is usually en suite so privacy can be
compromised if others use this.
General need for repairs and maintenance
Problems with mould on walls and ceilings are very common and can be linked to
health issues (allergies & asthma). Holes in walls, rotten stairs, windows that do not
slide and wardrobes that do not close add to people’s stress levels and feelings that
their housing is inadequate, irrespective of the numbers of people who are in the
house at the time.
Old kitchens
Aging kitchen facilities are seen as difficult to clean and may put people off cooking for
themselves and turn to takeaways, exacerbating health issues. Kitchens are generally
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very small to cope with large numbers of people being catered for, and lack adequate
bench preparation areas or storage for food and kitchen equipment. This is a serious
public health issue given the emphasis on food preparation skills and concerns over
obesity and food lifestyle related illnesses such as diabetes.
Lack of outdoor living
Outdoor seating areas that can provide additional socialising spaces can relieve
pressure on the internal spaces, and reduce stress, but they are not common in many
state houses in Inala. Such facilities are also used as additional sleeping spaces,
especially by young men in summer or during parties, Christmas celebrations or for
children to play out of the way of the adults.
Figure 14: Mould on ceiling in Inala resident’s state government house, caused by
inadequate ventilation and poor construction
4.9 Summary of findings in Inala
For the 18 interviews (with 17 interviewees) in Inala their household sizes ranged from
four to seventeen people, with an average of 8.6 residents (total 154 persons)
representing an average of 2.7 persons per bedroom using a conventional density
measure.
4.9.1 Background to visitation
Visitation occurred in two main patterns: local visitors coming for daytime or short-
term overnight visiting that nevertheless may occur in a serial manner; and long-
distance visitors who come for longer stays, often over pay-day periods to allow for
receipt of funds to return home. These long-distance visitors were chiefly from the
traditional and historical places of the family receiving the visitors, but here ranged
from South East Queensland places such as Cherbourg and Eidsvold to South-West
Queensland locations like St George, and North Queensland places like Cairns and
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Laura. This reflected the diverse Indigenous populations in Inala, which have been
influenced by the missionisation and movement restrictions in the 20th century.
Like the Mount Isa study’s findings, one of the most frequent causes of visitation was
simply to see kin and maintain family connections. Attending funerals was also
another major cause of visiting, and this seemed to cause more stress as emotions
were heightened and the obligation to attend is stronger, resulting in more visitors and
the need to accommodate them. Nevertheless the need to attend funerals is
acknowledged as an absolute obligation and people tended to cope with the stress
despite households become problematic during these times. Expectations of
behaviour were often lowered, with people being more forgiving of drinking and
emotionally unpredictable behaviour.
Additional reasons for visiting included special family celebrations such as Christmas,
special birthdays or wedding anniversaries, and other family events.
4.9.2 Large household formation patterns
Large households were categorised into four patterns that constituted their formation:
1. Diurnal visitors from Inala and neighbouring suburbs.
2. Diurnal visitors from Inala and neighbouring suburbs who also stay overnight.
3. Visiting children from elsewhere in Inala or neighbouring suburbs, who stay for the company of the host’s children or to be cared for by the householder.
4. Visitors from more distant Queensland and interstate places which involves staying for several days and sometimes weeks or on a semi-permanent basis.
Visitors in patterns 1 and 2 can come in a serial fashion (i.e. every day), leading to
very full houses, despite the visitors having their own homes in the nearby areas. This
indicates a desire for sociality and company that is very strong with Inala Indigenous
people.
4.9.3 Perceptions of stress caused by visitors
Stress and numbers in the house did not seem to be directly correlated. The
behaviour of visitors, the condition and state of repair of the house, and the authority
and agency that the householder could exercise in maintaining their control over the
house, were all factors that contributed to the perception of stress or lack of stress.
Common causes of stress were drinking and fighting (which were frequently cited as
being related), children not having enough to do or places to play, and the poor state
of repair or level of facilities in a house. Many people would seem to desire large
numbers if they could have the facilities to cope with such, for example additional
bathrooms, outdoor living areas to relieve the pressure on the internal living spaces,
and a bigger kitchen in which it is easier to prepare meals for large numbers of
people.
A number of strategies were outlined by householders to minimise or prevent stress
from occurring during times of large numbers living in a house:
sending visitors to another kinsperson, even if temporarily
firm administration of house rules by the householder
retreating to one’s own private space or another house
organising family outings to remove large numbers from the house during the day
hunting drunk people away
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calling police or other authorities when things get out of control.
4.9.4 Neighbourhood stress problems
Unlike Mount Isa, Inala people did not seem to have problems with neighbourhood
crowding, except in two cases where neighbours frequently complained and had tried
to have the householder evicted, one unsuccessfully and one that resulted in an
eviction. The density of Indigenous families in Inala is less than in the main study area
of Pioneer in Mount Isa, where most neighbourhood stress occurred. Many people
cited the agreeability of their neighbours and the phenomenon of people moving
house until they found a street that suited them and had neighbours with whom they
could get along. Many people also stated that they took care to manage neighbour
relations; communicating with neighbours about parties or visitors and asking for
understanding during these events. Some people explained that they rotated family
events through the different family houses, to avoid stressing the same neighbours
too frequently. The general acceptance of large households in the wider Inala
community was cited as a factor that helped many neighbours understand their
circumstances.
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5 CARNARVON LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS
This chapter sets out the findings from our interview survey of the 13 householders in
Carnarvon who were reported to have experienced large household formation.
As outlined in Chapter 2, the Indigenous population of Carnarvon had dropped slowly
over recent Censuses, commensurate with an overall drop in the town population and
was about 1100 in 2006, forming 19 per cent of the town population. As a port on the
western seaboard, Carnarvon was historically a drop-off point for Aboriginal removals
as well as a regional centre throughout the 20th century with a legacy of town camps
and reserves, culminating in a discrete urban Aboriginal settlement established in
1981 called Mungullah, which at the time of our survey, had 43 dwellings. Mungullah
had state Housing Commission-managed housing from 1981 to the late 1990s,
following this until 2009 the Mungullah Community Council managed housing, and
from this point the DoH (WA) has managed properties under a Housing Management
Agreement. Unlike Mount Isa, there were minimal facilities in Carnarvon for
emergency accommodation or homelessness except for a Women’s Refuge. But like
Mount Isa, there was regular circular mobility within the Gascoyne region as well as a
‘two-speed’ mining economy dividing and inflating the rental costs of the private from
the public housing sector. And also as in Mount Isa, working Aboriginal families who
exceeded the eligible ceiling income for government rental housing were often unable
to afford rental in the higher bracket private sector, compounding secondary
homelessness.
The content structure of the analysis in this chapter is identical to that in the previous
chapter, starting with a profile of the sampled households and their visitors, moving to
the nature of large household formation patterns and accompanying sleeping
arrangements and then addressing the nature of any perceived stresses around such
patterns and how households respond or cope with such.
5.1 Household profiles in the Carnarvon sample
Table 28 represents the people who were present in the 13 participant households at
the time of the interviews. Women are householders in all of the households, either as
sole householders in seven cases or as a female spouse with a male partner as a co-
householder in six cases. However, in these latter cases it is the woman whose name
is on the lease, not that of her male partner. Men tend not to be sole householders in
the Carnarvon Aboriginal community and this is reflected in the study group as well as
observed in previous research (Birdsall-Jones and Corunna 2008; Birdsall-Jones et al.
2010; Birdsall 1990). This pattern has also been observed in our other case study
sites.
In size, the core households ranged widely between three and 16 residents. In regard
to age, the total population of these households was dominated by children. Between
the ages of two and 18 there were 52 children as opposed to 55 individuals of all other
age groups combined.
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Table 28: Profile of sampled Carnarvon households—actual people present in core
household (ages in brackets)
*Usually the leaseholder, but sometimes as in 1 a relation who is minding the house while the householder is away. In the case of 1, she has brought some of her own household with her and they are now mixed with those of the original household who stayed behind.
N.B. Visitors are in the following table
Table 29 shows the household visitors during the study period. Only eight of the
thirteen households actually had visitors at the time of the survey. Of these eight, six
had one or two visitors only. Of the two households that had larger numbers of
visitors, one house (C.1) was being minded while the actual core household was away
visiting other kinfolk. One household in this study group, household C.4, had ten
visitors in addition to a core household population of 16, giving a total household of
26.
Four of the households in this group were members of the same large kin group. This
was fortuitous and it enabled the researcher to consider the inter-relationships and
differences in behaviour and of perception that there might exist in such a network of
related households. One distinct difference was that it cut down on the frequency and
the numbers of overnight visitors. To visit each other they had only to go across the
road. The numbers of residents in these households appeared to be more stable than
among most other households.
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Table 29: Total household numbers at time of interview including extended
family/visitors, August–September 2012
Notes: Assume adults aged 18 or over
# This participant and her family were among the visitors to this house
+ The householders are foster parents. Numbers vary accordingly, but none of the children are termed visitors by the foster parents
Table 30 indicates that among the study group, six households were made up of more
than 12 persons, with the remaining eight containing from four to eight persons.
According to the density measures used by state and federal housing departments,
the rate of ‘crowded’ households in the state of Western Australia was 16.8 per cent in
2008 (AIHW 2009). The representation of large households in the Carnarvon study
sample therefore was considerably higher than the state average published on
crowding.
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Table 30: Sizes of Carnarvon households at time of interviews, August–September 2012
A word is in order here about the recruitment of people to the study. Potential
participants were informed that the study was about crowding in Aboriginal
households, but that it was not required that their own household should be
experiencing crowding during the study period. Rather, it was required that they had
experienced household crowding in the previous year and could discuss the ways and
means they had developed for managing household crowding. Because the
researcher did not specifically search out crowded households, the proportion of
density-related crowding among participant householders was perhaps more
significant than it might otherwise be despite the statistically small number of
households in the study group.
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Figure 15: Plan of Carnarvon, Western Australia, showing location of the discrete urban
Aboriginal settlement, Mungullah. Numerals indicate number of interviews carried out in
those parts of the town
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Figure 16: Map of Gascoyne region (green), Western Australia, showing location of
Carnarvon in relation to other Aboriginal population centres, from which visitors may
arrive
5.1.1 Seasonality and variety of sleeping spaces
Table 31 indicates that in eight of the households, areas other than bedrooms are
pressed into service to provide sleeping space for visitors. Some of this response
behaviour depends on the season. Winter in Carnarvon is considered to be too cold to
permit sleeping in outdoor areas such as the veranda, for example. The warmer
months open more possibilities for sleeping space including the lawn at the back of
the house. In summer, people may sleep there with or without shelter such as tents.
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Table 31: Carnarvon households’ distribution of persons in sleeping places–August
2011, December 2011 and January 2012
1 Used only in summer or generally when the weather is warm and fine.
2 The householders are an elderly couple and the man is very ill. They will not have many visitors unless and until he is well.
* Said to be used for visitors when they come.
# This room was an enclosed veranda, secure and sheltered from rain and sun but not used in winter because it was too cold.
= A shed that is used for visitors’ accommodation is always said to be a ‘good’ shed; concrete floor, lockable door, power, cleaned out and furnished for sleeping space.
However, although nearly everyone agreed that visitors could sleep out of doors,
away from the verandas, there were only three experience-based reports of visitors
actually sleeping outside the covered areas of the house. All three were associated
with the customary visiting that goes on for a funeral (this will be discussed further in a
later section).
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5.2 Household expansion—origins of visitors
Table 32 sets out the community identified by each Carnarvon interviewee as their
‘home community’, together with that of their partner (where relevant). The aim of this
table was to give an indication of where visiting relatives may come from.
Table 32: Identified home community of interviewees versus partners
Table 32 reflects the fact that by and large, Carnarvon Aboriginal people tend to find
partners from within their own community. This practice was not always the case, as
explained in the brief overview of Carnarvon earlier. In the early and mid-20th century,
there was extensive exogamy between the members of different language groups
who had found their way to Carnarvon under the directives of the Aboriginal Protector.
5.3 Reasons for household expansion
5.3.1 Mobility range and visitors
It is relevant to consider what we know of the contemporary mobility range among
Carnarvon Aboriginal people. Other research (Habibis et al. 2011) shows that the
mobility range for Carnarvon includes but is not limited to, Geraldton, Meekatharra,
Burringurrah, Roebourne, Tom Price, Port Hedland, Karratha and Marble Bar (where
the communities of Pipunya & Gooda Binya are located). Some of this travel is related
to men travelling in connection with Aboriginal Law Business. The greater proportion
of travel, however, is undertaken by women travelling on family business including
checking up on their daughters and their grandchildren (Habibis et al. 2011). The
following section provides some indication of the variety of reasons people have for
travelling, and the corresponding need for housing both short-term and long-term.
Table 33 provides a summary of the reasons that people gave for visiting or why they
were being visited. It should be noted that the total for this table is in excess of the
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actual study group. This is because there may be more than one reason for people to
be visiting their relations.
Table 33: Reason for visiting and the number of households for which this was reported
All of the reasons in this table have been regularly demonstrated in previous
Aboriginal mobility research (Memmott et al. 2006; Birdsall-Jones and Corunna 2008;
Birdsall-Jones et al. 2010; Habibis et al. 2011). Some explanation is still warranted
here however.
5.3.2 Providing care to kin
School holidays are included under the category ‘providing care to kinfolk’. Children
who are upper primary school age and older, not unusually may be taken to other
towns to spend their school holidays. Sometimes this is simply to provide the child
with a change of place for the holiday. Sometimes, however, this practice is
undertaken to temporarily relieve crowding in the child’s home household. Interviewee
C.2 provides this kind of care for one of her grand-daughters. Thus:
C.2: But at the moment she’s boarding up in Broome. She’s with her mum up in
Broome. But she’ll come back for holidays. But that’s how my house is. It’s
very old, you know? And my daughter, in Broome, she’s got a one-bedroom
unit, for her, her other half, and her and her three kids. In a one-bedroom
home. And it’s shocking. They’re building all new homes around. She’s been
on the list since; well, her oldest one now, the one I look after, since she was
a baby, and that’s gone 13 years next year.
CBJ: Oh, and so that’s why she comes down to you so often.
C.2: Yeah. And in March she turns 13, you know? And my daughter’s still waiting
for a house. Homeswest said by February, she’ll have a house. But what
February? When’s February? She’s still waiting?
There are other ways in which providing housing to kinfolk might be described as
providing care for those kinfolk. Interviewee C.12 and her partner came from the
Wheatbelt to Carnarvon because he had, they thought, been offered a better job than
the one he had in the Wheatbelt town where they had lived for 25 years.
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5.3.3 Temporary homelessness as a cause of taking in kinfolk
C.12 provides an example of the provision of emergency housing for kinfolk when
things fail to proceed according to plan.
Before that, we were on a farm …. We came up here on a verbal promise of a
truck driving job for him and we got up here, but there was no job. It’d gone to
somebody else. I was lucky to get the job here [clerical position in an NGO].
(C.12)
Until her partner obtained work they could not afford to move into private rental and
because she worked, their income was over the eligibility limit set by the DoH (WA).
The circumstance falls into the category of temporary homelessness which includes
‘loss of housing through other causes’. The reasons in this category may also include
the loss of housing amenity because the gas and electricity bills have gone unpaid
and so people may go to stay with kinfolk until they have saved enough to pay the
bills.
5.3.4 Returning after time away
‘Returning to home community after time away’ includes release from prison or drug
rehabilitation as well as the individual’s decision to return to their own home country
after some years spent away. Interviewee C.6’s son was on probation and had to stay
in the town in which he was released from prison. She kept a room ready for him.
Well, [the person who slept in that room] mainly it used to be my other son, but
he’s gone at the moment. He’ll most probably be back. And he’s got three kids.
He mainly goes to prison and when he comes out he stays here. He wants to
stay out now because he’s got his two children. And he needs to get out, too.
His kids stay in there with him. I keep that room for him. When he comes he
stays in there all the time. He’s trying to get a house, but, he can’t get one.
(C.6)
Other research has shown that ‘returning home after time away’ is common to young
men who have been travelling for some years and who have decided to put an end to
their travels (Birdsall-Jones et al. 2010; Habibis et al. 2011).
5.4 Instances of arranging sleeping space for funeral time
C.2 was visiting her sister, C.3 in connection with C.3’s recent move into another DoH
(WA) property and a funeral that was imminent and being held in the Wheatbelt town
of Mullewa. The base household numbered eleven. C.2 and another sister were with
C.3 visiting and they were expecting several more of their siblings to arrive from the
north that evening. The funeral itself would be in Mullewa, but the family was
foregathering at C.1’s house to travel in convoy down to Mullewa for the funeral.
There were two family homes in Mullewa, both public housing rental. In this exchange
they were discussing where best to sleep in relation to the two houses. C.2’s house
and her sister’s house in Mullewa were both small two-bedroom houses, but they
were on sizeable blocks of land.
C.2: So when I get back down to Mullewa, she’ll be there with me [C.3 and her
family]. Because we got to go for a funeral down there.
C.3: And [their sister] will have, oh, a back yard full.
C.2: Well, I said to my sister, bring a tent, because she’s got [a sizeable back
yard]. My sister’s house. You could put another house in that back yard.
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In a separate instance, interviewee C.5 has a five-bedroom house and could
accommodate a number of people within the house on the occasion of a funeral.
However, it is not always the case that people necessarily want to sleep inside the
house.
Cause I did have a lot of family for a funeral. But they used to camp out the
back. On beds out the back. They don’t care cause they come from
Meekatharra. They won’t sleep inside the house. That’s how they are….They
like the outdoors. (C.5)
Interviewee C.7 cites the weather as the deciding factor in whether or not people will
prefer the outdoors to the house.
Oh, at funeral time, we was all pretty hot then, real warm. Generally they all
slept around, or all slept on the lawn here. (C.7)
Thus, various reasons are given for sleeping out of doors, such as the house being
too small to accommodate everyone, or the preference some people have for sleeping
outside, but the deciding factors are the weather followed by the capacity of the house
to hold the number of people that arrive for funeral time. There was no other occasion
proposed which would provide a reason for sleeping out of doors.
5.5 Other large household formation patterns
Most of the reasons for large household formation patterns are covered above. These
include visiting to maintain kin relations, providing care to kin whose homes are
undergoing stress because the home is not large enough to accommodate the family
with propriety, providing emergency housing to kin, and gathering for funeral time.
There are some other reasons that are not covered above, when one considers the
types of large household patterns.
5.5.1 Visiting within the town
In Carnarvon, visiting occurred in two broad patterns; casual daytime visiting and
visitors who came to live for varying lengths of time with the householder. Within the
former diurnal pattern, mothers and daughters who respectively lived in town visited
each other daily and young men appeared around lunchtime for a meal on a
somewhat irregular but expected basis. Teenagers roamed the houses of their kinfolk
haphazardly in the out-of-school hours. The teenagers sometimes stayed the night if
they became involved in either a television program or some activity that they did not
wish their parents to know about.
5.5.2 Daytime visiting
Daytime visiting is important in regard to large household formation patterns. Because
Carnarvon is so remote, this kind of visiting is limited to visiting kinfolk within town.
Generally speaking, there will be one particular house in a kin group that is visited
every day whereas those in other houses go out to visit. In most kin groups in town,
the person who is visited is generally the elderly mother of the current generation of
adults. Her children will generally visit her every day. There is often one other
household among the adult siblings whose home forms what we might refer to as a
‘hub’ for visitors at particular times of day. The high point here is lunch time. Most of
the people who came at lunch time were young men and most of them brought their
own lunch. They came only to eat lunch in company rather than alone.
5.5.3 Drinking for celebration
There were some occasions among the study group that occurred during the study
period that seemed to call for celebratory drinking. One of these was the birth of a
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new child (or grandchild) and the other was a birthday. On these occasions, kinfolk
gathered to mark the occasion and some would stay to drink through the day and into
the night and possibly into the next day. The researcher offered to visit these
households to add her congratulations and was told on both occasions:
Oh, well, no, you hadn’t ought to go over there just now. They’re all a bit
sparked up you see, from yesterday. It was [someone’s] birthday [or birth of a
child], see.
There was no suggestion that the researcher would come to any harm. Everything
was judged to be ‘pretty peaceful over there’, however people simply did not wish to
be seen by outsiders in this state of extreme relaxation, and of course the researcher
respected this.
5.5.4 Circular mobility
Some households appeared to have a constant turnover of large numbers of visitors.
An example is C.4. The householders in this house were an elderly couple who had a
large family. Their sons’ and daughters’ families were not as large as that of their
elderly parents, but taken together, this was a very large extended family. The sons
and daughters of the householders live in a small town within the Carnarvon
hinterland, which had no general grocery store, and although the roadhouse sold
some basic grocery items, prices were high and no one cared to shop there. They,
therefore, came to Carnarvon more or less on a fortnightly basis. At the time of the
interview, two of the householder’s adult children were visiting with their own children
to do the fortnightly shop.
5.6 Sleeping arrangement principles
In order to discover the relationship of people to sleeping space, all interviewees were
asked to draw a floor plan of their house and then to populate the house with its
present household membership. This proved very useful in ascertaining some
patterns in sleeping arrangements.
The householder and her partner, if they were together, always had the largest
bedroom. It was not unusual for them to take young grandchildren in with them either
in the same bed, if they were very young, or in a single bed of the child’s own if the
child was older. What was meant by ‘older’? This varied somewhat, but by and large
‘older’ meant that the child was at least six years old. There were some older children
who continued to sleep in their grandparents’ room into the upper years of primary
school, but this was unusual if the grandparents were living together, and much more
common if the grandmother was the sole householder. In such circumstances the
child would ordinarily be a girl. Here it was not uncommon for the grand-daughter to
have an allocated room in the house that she used occasionally, but with a preference
for sleeping in her grandmother’s room.
Young men in their 20s and 30s with no partner or children, who were still living with
their parents, would have a room of their own. They were not asked to sleep with
anyone else except in the extreme circumstances of funeral times. Then they would
have the visiting young boys and men sleeping in their room with them.
Young women with no partner and no children and who were in their 20s and 30s, still
living with their parents would not necessarily be given a room of their own. They
would ordinarily sleep in a bedroom with other, younger girls. Although both of the
younger women and older girls as well as the younger men and older boys had a
recognised need for privacy, it was more likely that the boys and men’s need would be
recognised in these circumstances. The researcher did enquire about this, as a matter
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of apparent inequality, and was told very earnestly that the young men needed their
privacy. The impression was that it was a matter of protecting the young men from
feeling shamed, but shamed in what way or on what account was not forthcoming.
The closest the researcher came to an answer was simply the assertion that they
needed their privacy. This leads one to the impression that the young men are
considered to have a greater need to come and go without having to inform their
mothers and sisters where they are going and why. This appears to be a matter of
independence. The independence of young women was also recognised and if there
was a way that they could be given a room of their own, this would be done. However,
they were definitely second in line in this regard in a situation of limited sleeping
space.
5.6.1 A case study in the distribution of sleeping space
The first diagram in Figure 18 illustrates the results of one interview using the house
plan as the basis for questioning intended to reveal the principles and rules the
householder was following in the allocation of sleeping space, and also, at what point
she would consider the house as full as it could hold. That is, the point at which she
would take no more visitors. The second diagram in Figure 19 illustrates this same
household at that point, at which the householder declared, ‘No. It’s too full now.
There’s no place to put anybody else’. The premise on which the case study rests is
an imaginary funeral; that of a fictional brother of the householder’s mother’s.12
If we look at the diagrams together, we note a number of features. First, we note that
the only bedroom in which the occupants do not change is the second bedroom where
the householder’s oldest daughter sleeps with her new baby. This is an indication of a
rule in the arrangement of sleeping space. It rests on the fact that the baby is very
young; so young that it requires special care and protection. The householder will not
require the young mother to take others into her room until the child is considered old
enough to require no longer such special care and protection. Therefore, the
occupants of this room do not change even when the house is this full.
Second, we note that both the householder’s older two sons have been given rooms
of their own for themselves, their partners and children (bedrooms 3 & 4 in Figure 19).
In order to do this, the householder’s younger daughter, aged 15, and the younger
son’s two older children are sent to sleep in the lounge room. To provide a bedroom
for her younger son and his family, the householder and her partner take the two
grand-daughters into their own room. The rule involved here is that couples must be
given their own rooms. The principles involved in the application of this rule involve
conjugal status, propinquity of the kin relationship, the age of the couple and the ages
of their children.
Couples should be given rooms of their own if at all possible and this reflects the
principle of privacy involving the display of a sexual relationship. ‘No one wants to see
their private business,’ is one expression of this principle. However, the mere fact of
conjugal status will not necessarily guarantee privatised sleeping space. The
propinquity of the kin relationship and in some cases the propinquity of the social
relationship will determine who among the couples will be allocated privatised
sleeping space. Therefore, the householder’s own children should be given priority in
order of age. It is according to age because seniority matters in the distribution of
privilege; ‘oldest looks after youngest and youngest obeys oldest’. Therefore, those of
12
In fact, both of the householder’s maternal uncles had passed on some years ago. In order to maintain respect for her uncles, a fictional mother’s brother was the object of the funeral. The reason for making up an uncle was to provide a relation who was important enough to account for the maximum attendance of the extended family.
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the couples who are the householder’s own children will take precedence over those
who are more distantly related to her; hence the two couples on the back veranda.
With regard to children and the allocation of sleeping space, seniority does not apply.
Children who are considered to be young enough to require special care and
protection will sleep with their parents in their bedrooms. The older children and the
adolescents will go into the lounge room. This is the same rule that applies to the
householder’s older daughter and her baby. The younger the child is, the more he or
she needs the focused care and protection of their parents.
The householder was asked where she would put her third son if he came home for
this imaginary funeral. She said that he could just go in with all the other kids in the
lounge room. The householder was then asked if she could put anyone on the back
veranda and she replied that it depended on who they were. After some discussion,
she settled on two young couples and a young man, who were more distantly related
cousins, to sleep on the back veranda and a couple more adolescents in the lounge
room. With these additions, she declared that there would be nowhere to put any
more people.
Figure 17: Mungullah housing village, Carnarvon, Western Australia
The genealogical diagrams below (Figures 18 & 19) illustrate the kin relationships
among all of the people who formed the expanded household. The kin who were
assigned sleeping space on the back veranda and the adolescents who were put to
sleep in the lounge room are shown in Figure 19. The basis on which these particular
people were chosen was that they were relatively distant cousins, but the relationship
with these kin from other parts of the extended family had been more or less
maintained over the generations. The householder considered it possible though not
likely that they would attend the funeral. She chose them as examples of kinfolk to
whom she would not ordinarily refuse sleeping space on any basis, but who were
distant enough in social and in kin terms for it to be appropriate to offer them the back
veranda on which to sleep.
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Figure 18: Example of sleeping arrangements in Carnarvon, of a core (or base)
household—total of nine
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Figure 19: Example of sleeping arrangements in Carnarvon, adapted to accommodate
visiting kinspersons—total of 27
5.7 Perceived absence of stress by some interviewees
The terms ‘crowding’ and ‘stress’ were not used in interviews although they did form
part of the information provided to interviewees about the study. The effort was to try
not to put words into their mouths, so to speak, and also to avoid inducing in them a
response to the terms themselves rather than the conditions under which the
interviewees lived. Not unexpectedly, no interviewees used either the word ‘crowding’
or the word ‘stress’. It was necessary to the research to discover how the interviewees
themselves spoke of difficult living conditions.
Within the Carnarvon group of interviewees there were six extended family groups
represented. Not all were well represented in the town. Those interviewees whose kin
groups were well-represented kin groups in town were:
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Kin group 1 – C.1
Kin group 2 – C.4
Kin group 3 – C.5
Kin group 4 – C.6, C.7, C.8, C.13.
C.2 and C.3 were sisters who certainly came from a large kin group, but most of the
group’s members lived to the north and south of Carnarvon. C.9 was related to a
number of kin groups in Carnarvon, but she and her daughter seemed, at the time, to
be almost social isolates. The reason for this was their attachment to a particularly
noisy drinking life style and this made them unwelcome visitors. C.10 and her partner
were from the Wheatbelt region north of Perth and were living in Carnarvon because
they had work there. C.12’s partner was C.10’s cousin-brother and they too were in
Carnarvon for work. The rest of their very large kin groups lived to the south in the
Wheatbelt. C.11 had been a foster mother for many years and although there were
many people she had fostered living in Carnarvon, her kin group was from the Perth
metropolitan region.
The effect of having a large kin group living in the town is to encourage daily visiting
patterns to the households of senior members of the kin groups. This is a household
of the kind we have termed ‘hub’ households. People visit kin-related hub households
to get news of the family, catch up with other members of the kin group and to pay
respect to the senior kin group member whose house it is. Crowding in hub
households forms a daily ebb and flow, whereas other kin-related households are
visited less often and for more specific reasons. These reasons included the
exchange of child minding, to arrange to go shopping, and so forth. Householders
who were members of large kin groups in town tended not to express much stress
about the way they lived. Reasons for this included the fact that the dominant visiting
pattern was in the daytime. People were always busy with one another; visiting,
running errands, shopping and so forth, but night-time household numbers seemed
not to be an issue.
Being the only representative in town of a large kin group has the opposite effect.
Such households receive little daily visiting and instead tend to have large numbers of
kinfolk visiting periodically for days or weeks. This tended to be the situation of the
householders with whom C.4 and her family were staying. In these circumstances, the
householders insisted on everyone leaving the house for the afternoon, every day, so
that they could rest and ‘have their peace and quiet’ (Interviewee C.4, September
2011). The householders with whom C.9 and her daughter were staying followed the
same practice. However, these householders were not excluding their visitors on
account of numbers, but because they were themselves ill and C.9 and her daughter
were drinkers and they would not share their house with C.9 when she and her
daughter were drunk.
A category in between those of being stressed and not stressed, were households
who indicated that they were generally in control (hence apparently unstressed) but at
times, circumstances could temporarily arise to create a problem which was
nevertheless solvable through a particular strategy.
For example, C.4 was a house with a consistently high turnover of visitors. One of the
daughters-in-law of the householder couple was interviewed. On being asked if the
house was perhaps a bit difficult to live in on account of the numbers, she replied that
it was all ‘pretty peaceful’, and that their stay in Carnarvon would be brief in any case.
There were two indications that the household was felt to be crowded, at least by
some of its residents. The interviewee modified her statement that the house was
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‘pretty peaceful’, because of the children. She explained that they would sometimes
get into arguments but, she said, ‘Kids are kids; you just got to expect those sorts of
things’.
The second indication that the householders might be feeling the pressure of a lack of
privacy, the rise in the level of noise and so forth, was when an interview was sought
of C.4’s parents-in-law, the householders. ‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed, ‘you can’t talk to
them now. They’re having their rest. They’re asleep. That’s why we’re all over here [in
a neighbouring house]. They made everybody go somewhere else for the afternoon
so they could get their bit of peace and quiet for their sleep’.
From these two indications one might surmise that, although the household was
managing on the understanding that the situation was short-term, there were still
sources of stress in play that, albeit temporary, made daily life tiring and at times,
difficult for at least some of the household.
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Table 34: Occasional perceived stress of Carnarvon interviewees arising from expanded
households
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5.8 Further strategies used to cope when stressed.
One strategy used to cope when stressed is the practice of sending all visitors out to
spend the afternoon away from the house, which is discussed above. However, there
are other ways of coping with stress within one’s own household.
5.8.1 Re-organising sleeping arrangements
Many Carnarvon households have a practice of sleeping together in the lounge room
and no-one thinks the worse of them for this. C.10, however, found that when she had
her youngest child this past year, she could no longer tolerate this practice. The
lounge room was beginning to feel small and arguments among the children
prevented the household from falling asleep in a timely manner. C.10, who was
employed, therefore purchased additional beds and bedroom furniture and required
that everyone commence sleeping in their own rooms. For her, the house then lost its
stressful, disorderly feeling and in her estimation, her children were better for it.
5.8.2 Growling at visitors
In other situations, the stress of daily life in the household had nothing to do with
numbers in any conformation. Rather it involved the behaviour of the visitors. If the
visitors are drinking in excess of what the householder feels to be reasonable and
make no contribution to food or other running costs yet readily consume them, they
may by various means be asked to leave. There was one householder who dealt with
this by requiring the teenage daughters of the visitors to clean her house under her
direction and telling them strictly that if they were not home by a particular hour, the
doors to the house would be locked and no-one would let them in. This practice of
growling is an effective method of controlling unwanted behaviour for those with
sufficient authority; householders in this situation inject their own content into the
practice of growling. It is a practice that is not open to most younger women, but by
her middle 30s, a woman should be fairly proficient at it. She needs to be because it is
the primary means of getting recalcitrant visitors to behave and sometimes, in finally
telling them to go.
5.8.3 Relieving crowding stress in kin-related households
There was one verified instance of this and that is C.2 taking one of her grand-
daughters from Broome to her home for the summer holidays. While this was the only
verified instance, other people did talk about it as a method of relieving stress through
inadequate housing in kin-related households in other towns.
Many households in Mungullah and Carnarvon generally undergo expansion during
the school holidays. People speak of the need to ‘give the kids a little break’.
Mungullah and Carnarvon people may take their children to other towns within their
mobility range, such as Karratha, Roebourne, Port Hedland and Broome. Other kin-
related families may stay at their houses while the majority of the resident household
is away. Thus, it becomes possible to give one’s children a change of place for a
holiday without undergoing excessive expansion.
5.9 Earlier phases of neighbourhood induced stress
On this particular field trip to Carnarvon, the Aboriginal community appeared to be
experiencing a period of relative calm. The village of Mungullah was tidy and quiet
through the night, and other known trouble spots around the town were similarly
relatively quiet. The years 2007–10 were not so peaceful. Mungullah was not a happy
place, but there was a good reason behind this. During those years, the sewerage
plant at Mungullah was not working (Habibis et al. 2011). Even in the dry season there
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was occasional overflow and in the wet season, raw sewerage was running in the
street and standing in pools in the children’s play park. The pump and the pipes of the
sewerage plant were finally replaced and repaired and the response of the community
was immediate. Neighbourhood-induced stress incidents became much more rare
events. This is a case of an antecedent factor contributing to a sense of
neighbourhood crowding.
Other areas of Carnarvon, between Morgantown and Brockman, formerly major
trouble spots, were not mentioned in the current research survey. When they were
problem areas, in 2008 and 2009, householders dejectedly said that the only thing
they could do about the violence and the speeding cars was to call the police and to
keep the children within the house (Birdsall-Jones and Corunna 2008).
5.10 Physical needs and improvements to cope
A number of desired physical improvements were identified by interviewees as being
necessary to relieve their stress.
Dangers of inadequate repair and maintenance
The stress of living in a house also has to do with the house amenity and whether or
not it seems to the household to be a safe place to live. For example, the photo below
shows a small hole in the corner of the lounge room which, in other settings, might not
be a problem. Carnarvon, however, is within the habitat range of the King Brown
Snake, also called the Pilbara Python and it is a venomous snake. In this house, the
household members discovered that the small hole was providing ingress when they
moved the lounge chair one day and found a sizeable King Brown. It is not an
aggressive snake and so it made its way back down the hole and disappeared under
the house. A pot plant has been kept over the hole.
Figure 20: Access hole for King Brown snakes
Source: Vanessa Corunna
The result of this was that fewer activities took place in the lounge room. For example,
the television was on the dining room table instead of on the entertainment unit that
was purchased to hold it. After several years of pointing the problem out to various
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DoH (WA) officers, the hole was finally blocked and inspected for snakes. The
household has returned to using the lounge room. Up until this point, however, the
house could not provide adequate space for the household activities required of it.
The householder’s major concern was that the children lacked space to do their
homework but this was a hub household. Most of the family in Carnarvon came to visit
there every day. This caused both space and safety problems to all concerned.
Need for storage facilities
While not as dramatic as the problems caused by the King Brown snake, there is
often a relative lack of storage space for a large household in public housing. No-one
to whom we spoke had adequate storage space. Those of their belongings that could
not be stored in the cupboard spaces provided were stored in large plastic garden
bags arranged in rows along corridors and against the walls of rooms. The newer
houses had built-in wardrobes in the bedrooms and pantries in the kitchen, but the
majority of homes were the old style. The least expensive wardrobes and cupboards
cost over $200. Aboriginal people on government benefit incomes simply cannot
afford these things.
General wear and tear
In addition, kitchens and bathrooms tended to be old and dilapidated; there were
holes in the walls of some homes. Window and door frames were warped with age
and weather and did not close properly. All of these problems can make a house
inadequate to the purpose for which it was built so that it cannot properly provide the
basic expectations of space residents should be able to have in their home. It is with
some difficulty that some houses provide room enough for the listed tenants. This
causes stress because people simply find the house inadequate to their needs.
On a positive note, the Carnarvon office of the DoH (WA) had begun a program of
renovation of homes at Mungullah and in the town itself. Verandas were being
lengthened or widened, interiors were being painted and door and window frames
were being repaired. This will be a substantial step forward for Carnarvon Aboriginal
public housing tenants whose homes seem to have remained in a stagnant state of
disrepair for many years previously.
5.11 Summary
In Carnarvon, visiting occurred in two broad patterns; casual daytime visiting and
visitors who came to live for varying lengths of time with the householder. Mothers
and daughters who respectively lived in town visited each other daily. Young men
appeared around lunchtime for a meal on a somewhat irregular but expected basis.
Teenagers roamed the houses of their kinfolk haphazardly in the out-of-school hours.
The teenagers sometimes stayed the night if they became involved in either a
television program or some activity that they did not wish their parents to know about.
Visitors who came to live in the households of their kin for a period of time did so for
the following reasons:
To maintain kin links as with mothers coming to stay with their daughters and grandchildren for lengthy periods of time which might be as much as three months or more.
To attend funerals.
They had lost their own homes and were now homeless, reduced to travelling between households of their kinfolk, seeking not to place too much stress on any one household in particular.
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Their own home had lost amenity either through a failure of repairs and maintenance, or the householder’s own failure to pay the electricity and gas bills, and in consequence having the power and gas to their own home disconnected.
They were in the dangerous position of fleeing from a situation of domestic abuse.
A set of sleeping arrangement principles were elicited from the Carnarvon
interviewees for when households expanded, based on variables of age, gender,
spousal status and notions of privacy and independence. These last two together
pertained particularly to people in their late teens.
Interestingly, very few interviewees used the word ‘crowded’ in relation to their homes
or the homes of others except in reference to very specific circumstances. No-one
claimed it as the state in which they constantly lived. Still, the way in which some
people spoke about their current circumstances indicated that they felt stressed in
ways that conformed to our model of crowding. Major sources of stress occur in
combined households made up of short-term visitors. These most commonly are
conflicts among certain age groups of the children. In the case of people who are
living in these circumstances in the long-term, there is a certain feeling of shame that
parents cannot provide their children with a home of their own to grow up in. Although
people dislike feeling dependent, or ‘in the way’, they are fully aware of the generosity
of their kinfolk in providing them with a home when nothing else is to be had.
Household stress and numbers therefore were not clearly correlated. This is in line
with our model of crowding. Crowding may arise from a lack of fit between simple
household numbers and how people use their housing, and how they feel about their
living conditions on a day-to-day basis.
It seemed that for people to live contentedly in large households, they needed to be
assured of a relatively large deal of household and yard space. There seemed to be a
better correlation between the physical condition of the house and feelings of stress. It
is possible that this field work discovered Carnarvon in a state of relative calm
because the DoH (WA) was undertaking the housing renovation and improvement
program, thereby providing people with the additional space required to improve
access to privacy which is so necessary to the alleviation of stress in households.
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6 SWAN LARGE HOUSEHOLD ANALYSIS FINDINGS
This chapter sets out the findings from our interview survey of the 18 householders in
Swan who were reported to have experienced large household formation.
As a peripheral area of Perth, Swan had Aboriginal town camps throughout the early
and mid-20th century which were frequently moved due to complaints by the
expanding white landowners. Rental housing provision for Perth Aboriginal families
did not become seriously provided for until the 1970s when the Western Australian
Housing Commission took over responsibility from the Department of Native Affairs.
At the time of the survey, there were a wide range of emergency housing and
homelessness services in Perth. A feature of housing management in both Swan and
Carnarvon (in contrast to Queensland) was the ‘three strikes policy’ whereby tenancy
incidents of ‘dangerous behaviour’, ‘serious behaviour’, and ‘minor behaviour’ were
managed respectively by immediate eviction, eviction after two incidents, and eviction
after three incidents.
The content structure of the analysis in this chapter is identical to that in the previous
chapters, starting with a profile of the sampled households and their visitors, moving
to the nature of large household formation patterns and accompanying sleeping
arrangements and then addressing the nature of any perceived stresses around such
patterns and how households respond or cope with such.
6.1 Household profiles in Swan sample
Table 35 represents the people who were present in the participant households at the
time of the interviews. Half of the households were run by couples and half by women
on their own. At 50, the largest single group in these households were boys between
the ages of 3–18 years. Between the ages of 2–18 there were 73 children which
amount to 46 per cent of the study group.
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Table 35: Profile of Swan households that were sampled (ages in brackets)—people in
core household
a The subtotal includes the householder(s). b Two householders always is a conjugal pair or a couple. Where there is one householder, therefore, the gender is specified. c This woman was living in a shed at the back of the house. ~ Indicates that because they were living in the shed, they were not in fact householders. N.B. Visitors are in the following table
The size range of the Swan households varied between four and 17 individuals
claimed as forming the core household. Some houses had a relatively large number of
children. Household S.7, for example, held 14 babies and children and six adults
including the householder. The reason for this is that the householder had a family of
her kinfolk living with her who had been evicted from their home under the ‘three
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strikes policy’. This formed a pattern among Swan households. The larger households
held refugees from the ‘three strikes policy’ in addition to the base household. Another
pattern was aunts and grandmothers taking in grandchildren and nephews and nieces
who had either run away from their parents’ home or who were being badly treated by
their parents in the opinion of their aunt or grandmother.
Table 36: Extended family/visitors staying at the time of the interview together with total
numbers in household (core householders & visitors)
d These four people were visitors occupying the shed in back of the house
Table 36 shows that more than half of the Swan households had no visitors during the
study period. The eight households that did have visitors had between three and 24
kinfolk visiting during the study period. This is a reflection of the effect of the ‘three
strikes’ policy. One householder currently was fighting an eviction notice under this
policy. Five interviewees said that they would take no visitors because their homes
currently held too many people. There were three who were currently living with
kinfolk because they had been evicted from state housing under the ‘three strikes
policy’. There was one interviewee who had received one strike and said she would
be very unwilling to take any visitors until that strike was removed from her record.
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Table 37: Sizes of Swan households at time of interview, August–September 2011 and
January 2012
Table 37 indicates that in Swan slightly less than half of the households were made
up of 13–20 persons. The remainder of these households held from 4-10 persons.
6.1.1 Provision of sleeping space
Table 38 indicates the pattern of use of sleeping spaces in the sample of 18
households. Nine were using living or dining rooms for sleeping at the time of the
interviews, with another six indicating that these spaces were used when visitors
came.
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Table 38: Swan households’ distribution of persons in sleeping places, August 2011,
December 2011 and January 2012
* = Said to be used for visitors when they come. ~ = This is the person’s assigned bedroom, but the individual sleeps in the lounge room in front of the TV as often as not. # This room was an enclosed veranda/sunroom and was weatherproof but use as a bedroom blocked light from the lounge room. Split cell under lounge/dining room—sleepers divided between the two function areas, although lounge/dining may architecturally form one large room.
It is noteworthy that no-one offered a caravan to cope with the problem of sleeping
space. This is consistent with previous research in other locations (e.g. Broome)
showing that Aboriginal people (at least in WA) apparently do not include this form of
shelter as an option. In contrast, four interviewees found the idea of housing visitors in
a shed acceptable provided it was a good quality small construction with a concrete
pad floor, was secure and lockable, had power connected and was clean and
furnished with bedroom furniture. Despite this, only two actual instances of living in a
shed (1 couple & 1 group of men) are represented in our study group. There were
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men who regularly slept in the carport or on the back veranda when they visited, but
they were not present during our study period. Apparently they used these outdoor
areas in both winter and summer. Partly this was said to be the preference of some
men, particularly from the north, to sleep outside the house, and others accepted it
having no better alternative.
Even when people who are relations are off the streets and that. I’ve got, in the
carport, usually I have a mattress out there, and I tell them just to help
themselves, just sleep out there. Cause it’ll be better than living where they
have been. (S.3)
I had my brother, who came down from Roebourne, sleeping outside, in the
carport…. [My brother] sleeps in the carport because he likes the fresh air and
getting out in the open. (S.12)
Some practices cannot be tabularised in this manner, such as whether or not the
householders give up their bedroom to visitors. This depends to some extent on who
the visitors are. Some younger people give up their bedroom only for their parents, for
example. Others extend this practice to include those of their brothers and sisters who
come with their partners and children. Older householders do not engage in this
practice because their status precludes it, meaning, that it would shame all concerned
if the older householders were to give up their bedrooms for anyone. Still, other
householders never give up their sleeping space for anyone. All visitors are expected
to sleep in the lounge room. It does not seem as though this is a matter of the deep
structure of Aboriginal relationships and is more a matter of individual kin-group
practice. Further research would be needed to find a definitive answer to this
question.
6.2 Household expansion—origin of visitors
6.2.1 Where is home?
The following Table 39 contains the identity of the home communities of the Swan
interviewees and their partners.
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Table 39: Identified home community of Swan interviewees and their spouses or
partners
Of 18 interviewees in the Swan SLA, four had a current conjugal relationship. Of
these, two were with someone from outside their own country. Seven interviewees
were from the Swan SLA or the nearby Midland area. Six interviewees or their
spouses were from the Wheatbelt region north of Perth. Interviewees generally
expected that their visitors would be coming to stay from around the Wheatbelt region,
sometimes for a funeral. More often though they would expect visitors to be
requesting shelter on account of loss of their own housing or housing amenity.
For most of the interviewees, Swan SLA and Midland SLA were seen as a continuous
Aboriginal region of origin. People preferred to partner with others from Swan-
Midland. As well, they resisted the idea of living outside of this region mostly because
this is where their families are, but also it is the region with which they identify on an
everyday basis. This is the case even with those few interviewees who have ties to
country outside Swan-Midland, such as the Wheatbelt or the Great Southern.
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Few people claimed associations outside of this relatively restricted region of the
state. The government settlements to which their forebears had been sent were
Moore River Native Settlement, and New Norcia Mission in the Wheatbelt. Few had
ancestral ties with the more southerly government settlements of Carrollup and
Wandering. Their view of their country was solidly located in the upper valley of Swan
River and north into the Wheatbelt.
Figure 21: South-West of Western Australia showing places identified by Swan
interviewees as ‘home’ community of self or spouse (with red dots) and indicating the
likely catchment of household visitors
6.3 Reasons for household expansion
This section discusses the forces that drive household expansion and the means by
which people manage household expansion. In all Aboriginal societies, mobility is a
common driver of household expansion and this is the subject of the following
subsection. However, in Swan there is a force external to the Aboriginal socio-cultural
world that is driving the expansion of households, and this is the DoH (WA)’s ‘three
strikes’ policy. This policy is a significant source of stress for the Aboriginal people of
Swan, as will be shown when we come to that part of the discussion.
6.3.1 Mobility
In the Swan interviews, it was quite clear that the way that people talked about
mobility related to homelessness was quite different to the way people talk about
mobility related to visiting for cultural reasons, including to maintain kinship ties. S.5,
for example, was homeless over a period of at least five years before acquiring her
current public housing home.
I was living with [her daughter] and her kids. So from there to here, but then
before that, when I had my other place, all the girls were with me with all the
kids, so it was just constantly crowded. So for the last five or six years, I been
constantly moving around, until I got my own place and then they all come and
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stayed with me. And then when I never had my own house, they’d come and
stay with me and all my grannies. (S.5)
Interviewee S.4 has a good relationship with her family and enjoys having them
around her, however:
…that doesn’t mean you need to live together in order to have your kinship, to
have your strong family relations. They can come and visit, they can stay for a
while, but I don’t want to have them living with me, and I don’t want to live with
them. I think that even when they lived in the camps, everyone had their own
little camps, had their spaces. They respected that. (S.4)
S.4’s statement that ‘everyone had their own little camps…they respected that’
segues into the matter of house design.
6.3.2 Concept of the ‘accordion house’
‘Accordion house’ is a term that was used by social workers in Perth during the 1980s
(Birdsall 1990). In that context, it was used exclusively with regard to Aboriginal
households and it meant that the people you found at a particular house one day
would not necessarily be the same people you found the next time you visited (this
term is also used in the wider international housing literature (cf. Hansen 1998)). The
household numbers expanded and retracted according to processes that the social
workers claimed not to understand. It is this phenomenon that this report, in part,
directly addresses. There are reasons why households may expand or contract on a
more or less rapid pattern of transition. Funerals, for example, change everything.
Funeral time, a period of time very loosely specified, brings more or less predictable
but imprecisely known, numbers of kinfolk to the town where the funeral is to take
place. This was discussed previously in the chapters on our Mount Isa, Carnarvon
and Inala findings and we merely note it here as one certain cause of movement of
people and increase in numbers in Aboriginal households. But there are other forces
afoot and in Swan they appear to revolve around the care and protection of children.
A grandmother will, apparently, suddenly leave and go to her daughter’s home, taking
most of her household of dependents with her, leaving only one couple or person to
mind the house during her time away. Her reason for going falls into the category of
cultural mobility (Birdsall-Jones & Shaw 2008) and often what impels her to go visiting
is that she may have heard news that her daughter needs some kind of help or
support for any of a number of reasons from the illness of one of the children to the
deterioration of her daughter’s relationship with her in-laws. Thus, while it may appear
sudden and impetuous to others, she will very probably have been planning such a
journey for weeks, waiting for the opportunity of someone else travelling north to take
her and her numerous household in their car, or for someone among her kinfolk to
arrive seeking housing, whom she can with some confidence leave to mind her home.
Similarly, her daughter will have been expecting her for some time, but she will not be
notified of the exact date of arrival because it is a matter of the confluence of several
events—the transport, the house minders and her pension—and perhaps other
factors that arise outside of her own planning. In any case, she will arrive at her
daughter’s house and be greeted with no surprise; only an affectionate greeting such
as, ‘well you finally made it’ (Birdsall 1990; Birdsall-Jones & Corunna 2008; Interview
S.1 & S.2, September 2011).
Other forces behind the accordion house include the way in which the local kin group
in general perceives and judges the quality of care that a child is receiving on an
ongoing basis. If the situation is judged to be lacking in some essential quality, such
as ensuring that the child attends school regularly, or is in danger because the
parents permit too much unregulated drinking and drug taking among visitors who
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may or may not be kin, it may fall to the duty of the grandmother or one of her sisters
to remove the child to her own household (Birdsall 1990; Birdsall-Jones 2003). The
task of formalising this with agents of social welfare follows on from this much later, or
perhaps not at all. One reason that it may not be formalised at all has to do with the
child’s parents’ access to their public rental house and their welfare-based income.
Without the child or children, the parents would not qualify for their public rental
house, and their income would be greatly reduced by losing the Principle Caregiver’s
allowance and any annual child payments intended to support the child’s needs in
regard to schooling, and other basic needs. A woman cannot so pauperise her own
son or daughter this way, and so she takes the child without any government support
or imprimatur for her custody of the child.
These are hard decisions to make and difficult actions to take. Women rarely go back
on these decisions fearing that even though a temporary improvement in the situation
may occur, it is only that; temporary; and she would have to go through the whole
process again. This would be very hard on the mother or grandmother and harmful to
the development of the child, and so it is rare that a child taken into the custody of a
grandmother or aunt is returned to the care of the parents (Birdsall 1990; Birdsall-
Jones & Corunna 2008).
We see this in our Swan study group very clearly. The high numbers of children in
some households is a direct result of the operation of this culturally-based system of
child welfare. The process of maintaining an orderly and stable household for the
children becomes the sole objective of the householder and this is one reason why
the grandmothers and the aunties never leave their dependent children behind when
they travel to other towns to check up on the families of their sons and daughters.
When most of the family lives in the same general region, this task becomes much
easier to fulfil. The knowledge that they have family on whom they can rely to such a
great extent is also one reason why Swan Aboriginal householders strongly resist
being housed outside the Swan-Midland region. Their safety net is here, and that is a
major factor in the resistance to being housed away from this region.
This culturally-based child welfare/protection system is not to be confused with the
ordinary movement of adolescents around the homes of their kin network. Such
mobility is not always an expression of poor parenting threatening the welfare of the
child. Rather, this is an expression of normal Aboriginal adolescence. During these
years, ‘the kids’ move back and forth between their parents’ and the homes of various
of their relations with relative freedom. This was noted across all of our study sites.
6.4 Large household formation patterns
6.4.1 Sleeping arrangement principles
As noted in Chapter 1, we requested that each interviewee draw a floor plan of their
house. Using this projective technique, we were able to name each room according to
its use with a focus on sleeping space and to obtain accurate information regarding
who slept where. Often each bedroom was given a name. A room might be named
‘my son George’s room’ for example. It was very important to provide George (a
fictitious exemplar) with a room he could always call his own because providing a man
with no established family of his own with a home is integral to ensuring his health and
his safety. Both of these would be in danger should he adopt the drinking circular
mobility pattern that it seems so many men are bound to pursue through lack of any
other housing alternative. Although there were limits to this method, it made it possible
for us to ask direct questions concerning the combining of householder and newly-
arriving visitors into ‘sleeping groups’ for particular rooms and spaces around the
house.
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The process of moving the base membership of the household into new sleeping
groups is required when particular categories of visitors arrive. For example, a couple
with their children must be given a room on their own. The teenage girl and young
children who normally slept in that room are given the lounge in which to sleep. Older
teenage boys and girls who are single with no children, up to the age of around 20
may not get privatised sleeping space. However, they will be given sleeping space
from which it is possible to come and go without having to disturb the rest of the
household. It is said consistently by our interviewees that young people of this age
need their privacy.
This may have to happen even in the absence of visitors. S.12 explains:
I got two elder sons, and I’ve got a teenage girl who’ll be 14 next year. And I
said to them, my 14-year-old, cause at the moment I got three bedrooms. I
shifted from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom. And I said, oh wait there. I
said; my two sons got rooms on their own; I said, “where’s my 14-year-old or
my 13-year-old daughter’s going to sleep?” She ends up in the lounge. And
that’s what I’ve been telling my Homeswest officers, I said to them I need a
four-bedroom. I can’t expect my teenage girl, growing up, sleeping around in a
lounge. She’s got to have her own room, personal things. And I said “oh, how
long that’s going to be?” Oh; there goes the years again, you know? (S.12)
This corresponds with earlier discussions regarding the way in which the age of the
children structures the nature of household crowding. While the children are small,
there may not be a problem of crowding because when they are very young, children
can be combined in cross-gender groups. As they grow older, this becomes
impossible.
This is a priority house, three-bedroom. I haven’t got a lounge room in my
house because I use it as my bedroom. My oldest son and daughter won’t
share because they think they’re too old. My baby [girl], two, sleeps in with us.
(S.4)
Young men require their privacy sometimes for very simple, obvious reasons rather
than any matter of deep import.
Ordinarily, he lays in the room on his own. Like summertime, he would ‘cause
he likes lying back in just his shorts. (S.3)
It may be fine for a little boy to wander around in summer wearing only his underwear,
but it is certainly not okay for an older teenage boy or young man. The feeling is
simply that they should be free to do this kind of thing within the privacy provided by a
room of one’s own. If a young man cannot have privacy of this kind it can cause stress
for him and also for his mother because she does not want to see him deprived of
what she should under normal circumstances be able to provide for him. Interviewee
S.3 adds:
You don’t like seeing them out in the lounge cause the little kids get up early.
(S.3)
This may sound like a small issue, but the deeper meaning of what S.3 is saying is
that she does not like her 16-year-old son shamed by having to appear this way in the
company of his younger brothers and particularly his sisters.
Some of this concerns the formation of large households, but all of it concerns the
development of household stress that develops when a house cannot function in such
a way as to provide for the housing needs of all of its occupants. A household need
not be large in numbers in order for it to become crowded, in other words. We also
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need to acknowledge that the feeling of stress may not be the same for everyone in
the household. The householder may see an organised household in which everyone
has their own space, whereas a member of that household may see a situation that is
constantly active, noisy and the space that the household member sees as the space
supposedly reserved to their private use constantly invaded by others wanting to talk,
ask questions, borrow things, etc.
6.5 Perceptions of stress
6.5.1 Attitude toward crowding
In the Swan study group, there were 14 out of 18 householders who held negative
attitudes toward high-density and thus what could be termed as ‘crowding’. It was
evident that such perceptions are generally related to the current context and
circumstances of high-density. Five interviewees who were recorded as being neutral
regarding ‘crowding’ (in the emic sense) did have an attitude concerning it. They saw
a good side and a bad side to ‘crowding’ (in the emic sense). It is good, for example,
because if Aboriginal people did not take their kinfolk in, they would be homeless, in
dire circumstances, living rough under bridges or in cars. That is, those who are
homeless and find shelter in the homes of their kinfolk may not have a positive
attitude toward the circumstances in which they are living, but they are positive about
the cultural imperative to provide shelter to one’s kinfolk because without it, there
would be children in danger.
Interviewee S.5 was asked if she saw any good things about being overcrowded.
Not really. Oh, sometimes. At least I know where my grandchildren are, you
know, that they’re safe, and not being victimised by domestic violence and
everything. But, it’s come to the stage where the kids are getting older, and
they’re getting bigger; they need their own rooms, their own privacy. (S.5)
Children do tend to be a central feature of large Aboriginal households, and some
people are quite frank about this. Thus, S.8 commented:
It’s bad, really. Because, one time it might’ve been good, but now, the
generations are changing in that, the kids are having babies worser than us!
Having them now, they’re dropping them out like rabbits. And you see it’s
overcrowded, because when the kids had babies then they can’t get a home
because, you know? And Mum and Pa wants them out. (S.8)
A common feature of providing shelter to homeless relatives is that it can lead to
conflict among the children.
It’s good, but sometimes, family argue a lot, you know? And a lot of kids. And
the kids start fighting and arguing. You don’t want to get into big fights over
kids with your brother and sister. (S.14)
There are other reasons for feeling both positive and negative about large household
formation and these arise out of people’s responses to the ongoing conditions of
Aboriginal poverty; hunger for example; and these reasons cause people to see the
Aboriginal imperative to house their homeless relations as being good in and of itself,
but bad on account of the crowding (in an etic sense) that it often leads to. This
interviewee agreed with others about the potential for conflict that follows from putting
children of different households together, but goes on to cite the problem of food.
The bad parts is there’s always kids there that argue amongst themselves, and
they cause arguments between parents. You pay the people whose house it is
to live in it, you’ve got to buy your own food, other people who don’t buy food,
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eat it. Cause that’s always happened to us. Everywhere we lived we’ve bought
our own food, but if we were to leave, when we come back there’d be none.
Kids argue makes the parents argue. (S.4)
Constant demand sharing in a large extended household with limited resources from
food can thus create stress that is, arguably, a form of crowding (in an etic sense).
6.5.2 The ‘three strikes policy’ in Swan
In Western Australia there is a particular policy situation which caused substantial
concern to our Swan interviewees with regard to the imperative to house the
homeless. As described in Chapter 2, the Western Australian Government enacted in
2011 what is referred to as the ‘three strikes’ policy. In the Swan study group, people
who had acquired one ‘strike’ were fearful of losing their homes. The strikes were
acquired through neighbours’ complaints, principally about noisy children, and
interviewees expressed some confusion about how to avoid acquiring strikes through
such instances. Three interviewees were currently homeless having been evicted
according to the ‘three strikes policy’. One interviewee had been evicted on account of
the Dangerous Behaviour provision, which requires automatic eviction after only one
contravention of the policy. The eviction was enforced following a home invasion in
which two of the adult residents were injured seeking to prevent the ingress of
Aboriginal invaders to the children’s bedroom. The interviewee was, with reason,
confused as to how this particular type of contravention of the policy might have been
avoided. DoH (WA) policy does not condone this interpretation of the Dangerous
Behaviour provision, but nevertheless from the tenant’s point of view this was an
unavoidable situation for which a high price was paid.
However, others of the Swan interviewees spoke about the way in which Aboriginal
culture is in effect contravened by the ‘three strikes policy’ with particular regard to the
obligation of kinfolk to provide shelter to their homeless relations. Essentially, people
understand the effect of the policy as being evicted for providing for their families.
And they condemn me from having the kids in the house. Cause when another
family got three strikes, they went to Homeswest [the Western Australian
housing department]. And I told them well you can come and live with me, and
live in the kitchen. Cause they was homeless. (S.7)
Could one adhere to the dictates of respect for family that constitutes one of the
strongest themes in Aboriginal culture, without invoking the ‘three strikes policy’
thereby putting one’s own housing in danger? This policy represents an added layer
of psychological stress over and above what might already be a set of stressful
circumstances in a large household where some may be contravening Aboriginal
living values.
Although the Western Australian Government was warned by the Western Australian
Council of Social Service that this policy amendment would result in an increase in
homelessness, the Minister’s response was simply that there were support services
and they would have a role to play (Emerson 2011).
6.5.3 Stress and large household numbers
The issue of stress and large household numbers is closely related to the concept of
the accordion house, as described earlier. In Swan, numbers tended to vary most
when there were no children involved. S.16 and her partner had a regular system of
moving between households, the interviewee’s mother-in-law’s house in Swan and
another kin-related household in Geraldton. She was well aware of the problem of
wearing out her welcome and sought to pre-empt that moment by voluntarily leaving
to stay with another kin-related household. Others engage in the same practice. S.15,
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for example, had been doing it for more than ten years. It should be noted that those
of our interviewees who travel the circuit between the homes of their relations all had
their names on DoH (WA) waiting lists with no expectation of being offered a house,
ever. That is not necessarily the case, in fact, but it is what they believed and it does
colour the individual’s world view and view of self to believe that they will never have
their own home.
In those of the households we studied in which visitors were taken in, there was a
particular attitude on the part of the householders. They stated forthrightly that they
would not leave a relation of theirs on the street, no matter the consequences.
So we approached Karniny, and, see if they had any available housing. So
one came through, because we felt like we didn’t want to put pressure on our
daughter. And she’d get kicked out and overcrowded, for overcrowding and
things. But I think that was her way of saying, her door’s always been open,
but it’s a time now for overcrowding, you can easily get evicted. For that,
strikes and things. And that’s what she’s experiencing today. See half of the
people she got there, was part of the homelessness on the street. We’re part
of the Lockridge community. I mean, they’re still there staying! (S.15)
And I said. Look. I’ve got to be out. Because I got homeless kids that stay with
me there too. Their mothers and fathers just chucks them out, don’t want
nothing to do with them. And I’ve told Homeswest this and look I’m not getting
no money for them, but I’m just helping them out. And they don’t like it, DCP
don’t like it one bit. And I bargained with them, any way you can help me, but
nothing. (S.7)
In the above two cases, one can also discuss the added stress being imposed by the
Housing administration personnel (three strikes). However, in the following quote, we
see ‘crowding’ emically described in a positive way, as ‘a matter of culture’.
Crowding is a matter of culture. I’m the eldest of 12, always had lots of family
around me. White people might think this is crowding, for us it’s just family.
We’re always crowded here. We’re just brimming all the time. The kids put
mattresses on the floor, pull out the couch, and that’s part of the kinship
system. (S.1)
These householders were placing the imperatives of Aboriginal culture over the threat
of losing their homes through the various DoH (WA) policies intended to control
household population numbers; leasing agreements, extra rental charges for
additional household members and, of course, the ‘three strikes policy’.
Interestingly, there was very little offered by the Swan interviewees regarding
strategies used to cope when stressed. This may be the influence of the ‘three strikes
policy’, which is focused on the threat of neighbours reporting householders to the
DoH (WA). The only tactic offered was from a group of nine householders who were
largely concerned with housing their grandchildren, nieces and nephews who were
considered to be in danger from their parents, or who had become homeless through
parental neglect. These householders simply declared that they would take no more
visitors because their homes were too full already. This will be discussed further in the
next chapter.
6.6 Physical needs and improvements to cope
What a number of the Swan interviewees are referring to is what Memmott elsewhere
terms ‘domiciliary behaviour’ (2007). Memmott speaks of the ‘cultural fit’ between
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physical structures and the living patterns that surround them, and goes on to list
some of them:
…household groupings, typical diurnal/nocturnal behaviour patterns for
different seasonal periods, sociospatial structures, domiciliary space
maintenance, approach and departure behaviours, external orientation and
sensory communication between domiciles, sleeping behaviour and sleeping
group composition, cooking behaviour and the use of hearths, the storage of
artefacts and resources, and the response to the death of a householder.
There a number of reasons why an understanding of these domiciliary
behaviours is important. First and foremost, they can shed light on the nature
and meaning of the ethno-architecture around which the behaviour occurs.
Second, architects must understand the nature of these behaviours in order to
design appropriate residential accommodation for Aboriginal people whose
day-to-day household lifestyle draws on these customary traditions. (Memmott
2007, p.286)
While Memmott is discussing domiciliary behaviour and cultural fit in a relatively
traditional setting he does so with the clear understanding that all of this is relevant to
‘post-classical’ Aboriginal society as well (term after Sutton 1998).
Interestingly, this was an issue about which our Swan study group had quite firm
opinions. For example, the following is a summary list of points from S.17’s response
to the question: ‘How can they make housing better for Aboriginal people?’
1. The waiting list is the biggest problem.
2. They should build more houses.
3. Bigger kitchens, to look after these families that are in the houses.
4. A bigger bathroom and two toilets.
5. Bigger rooms all around.
6. It needs to be big outside so people can just camp out the back, when they come for funerals especially but some oldies birthdays as well.
7. And you need a street that’s not racist.
8. We need a big carport, and an outside fire, like a proper barbeque.
S.17 speaks directly to many of the needs outlined by Memmott above; domiciliary
space maintenance, approach and departure behaviours, external orientation and
sensory communication between domiciles, sleeping behaviour and sleeping group
composition, cooking behaviour and the use of hearths. Sensory communication
between domiciles is an important issue for Aboriginal people who live in
neighbourhoods of White Australians who are unsympathetic to their mere presence.
Certain of our interviewees revealed experiences that showed quite clearly that it was
not only Aboriginal behaviour that the neighbours objected to. It was, in fact, the
Aboriginal household itself.
S.7 for example, understood this to be the insoluble issue behind her imminent
eviction:
When we enquired, they just said they don’t want an Aboriginal family next to
them, that’s what it is. The neighbours, when we first moved in, they didn’t
want two Aboriginal families. (S.7)
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Her house was too close to her hostile neighbours to permit a sense of separation
between the households. This is not an uncommon complaint among our Swan study
group.
Sleeping behaviour and sleeping group composition is exacerbated as a problem by
the design of public housing. There are very few such houses that are four or five
bedrooms with more than one living area. Given the separation of siblings according
to gender as they grow older, this is a problem in a two or three-bedroom house. This
is illustrated in the following interview extract with S.5.
VC: So it’s okay while they’re little, but when they get bigger they need to have
their own rooms?
S.5: Yes. Their own rooms.
VC: So what sort of housing should they provide just to help big families or to
help with crowding? Like how should they design Aboriginal houses?
S.5: Oh okay. Bigger rooms mainly. The whole thing itself, the inside, much more
bigger. Not a three-bedroom. It all depends, how many children they have.
That’s what they got to look at I suppose. And if the mothers, or the parents
are going to take their mothers, or their aunties or whatever, the elders with
them too, to live. To look after them, see, as well as the grandchildren.
This issue of taking in the elders as they grow too old to live alone is a difficult issue
for many Aboriginal families. In Memmott’s listing of domiciliary requirements, this
speaks to household groupings, sociospatial structures, and approach and departure
behaviours. Interviewee S.8 had a suggestion from South Australia that appeared to
us both novel and practical.
Well, over in Port Lincoln, what we’ve noticed, [regarding her son and his
girlfriend]. Well his girlfriend, when he was living over there, she had a three-
bedroom flat that was in the front and she had [her partner, S.8’s son], and she
had her three kids with her and they were grown up, teenagers. They ended
up, well this is what they were doing in Port Lincoln; they did it to quite a few
people; they put granny flats in the back for children, or if there’s another set of
family there and it’s overcrowded? They’d put it on the back for them. (S.8)
Depending on a variety of other concerns, such as the ethnic/White/Aboriginal
composition of the surrounding neighbourhood, this idea of the add-on flat from S.8
could be an effective answer to certain important issues, including the storage of
artefacts and resources. The following four Aboriginal domiciliary behavioural needs
would be addressed with such a strategy.
Approach and departure behaviours; Older children of the family would find it possible
to have their independence, emphasised as being so important by many of our
interviewees. Elders could exercise similar independence, coming and going between
the households.
Sensory communication between households in this situation would be an advantage.
It would not go amiss for households to be able to take note of comings and goings of
others without intruding upon them.
A complaint among interviewees who have considerable experience of being
homeless and therefore living with relations; there is constant conflict over people
eating food they have not bought and which was expected to constitute the other
family’s provisions over the next day or two. If there was an alternative abode (a
significant step up from a shed no matter how ‘good’), it would go some way towards
resolving this source of conflict.
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Elderly Aboriginal people are often referred to as the ‘treasure’ of the family, or ‘our
gold’. The elderly themselves have collected through the years a collection of objects
which are important in telling the history of the family and how it came to be in the
shape and in the location it now is. Many elders enjoy having these objects out on
display and they use them to tell the young children the story of their own people and
places. They include photographs, children’s artwork, sporting awards, certificates
commemorating an achievement, as well as the artwork of the older children and
young adults and a great many more objects. This is more important than it sounds. A
family’s history is closely tied to its identity. Aboriginal people who have a strong
sense of their own culture and identity tend to be better equipped to face the
vicissitudes of life in a society significant portions of which are frankly hostile to them
(see Dockery 2010). Such displays would be controlled in a small flat.
Interviewee S.6 regarded the problem of large rubbish removal as relevant to housing
design. Perhaps it may be seen as peripheral but we agree that it is difficult to
maintain quality of life if inadequate provision is made for this problem. The nature of
the problem is, in the researcher’s experience, a valid Aboriginal problem. In response
to reassignment to a different house and evictions in particular, people have difficulty
in removing all of their furniture, white goods and so forth. Often, they simply leave it
behind and the DoH (WA) charges them for the removal so that the property will be
left empty for the next tenant. What this may mean in practice is that kinfolk receive
the goods that people have nowhere else to put.
Cause like my sister come and stay with me for a couple of weeks, she got
kicked out of her Homeswest house. She brought all her furniture, all her,
everything; washing machine, clothes, baskets, drawers, everything when she
come here. And she left it on the side of my house, and when she did get a
Homeswest house, she didn’t take it all with her. She left what she didn’t want
to take. And my brother did the same when he got out of gaol he had nowhere
to go. He come here and he had all his bags, and left all his bags of clothes.
You know he was building chests of drawers and beds so he could get into his
own place, but he was once again locked up again, he didn’t stay out long; so I
was stuck with his stuff on the side. And Homeswest come up my front yard
one day and said push it all out the back. So I pushed it all out the back and it
all got weather damaged. Couldn’t keep it under the carport so now, I ended
up with a backyard full of rubbish, and my sister didn’t want to help me, she
moved down to Gosnells, and yeah, and then my brother was back in gaol and
really I had no one. I mean I got a lot of family, but they’re too occupied in their
own life. I think sometimes they find me vulnerable because I’m on me own
with five kids. [Laughs]. (S.6)
Perhaps we might close this discussion with the observations of a woman who has
been homeless for the best part of 20 years, and has been living with various of her
kinfolk over that entire period of her life. With regard to crowding, she says:
Overcrowding is no good. You argue over things like the bills and cleaning up
and all that stuff. But you come to accept things when you have no choice.
(S.25)
Her final statement succinctly and accurately defines the relationship between
housing design and crowding.
Aboriginal families need big property and lots of space to accommodate
homeless families. We will go to our family when we have no other place to
stay. (S.25)
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6.7 Summary
In Swan, the influence of the ‘three strikes policy’ cannot be ignored. While we
conceded that sample sizes are small, we believe that the level of stress expressed
by those tenants who did mention it was such that this policy plays a significant role in
determining both patterns of housing density and housing-related stress for the
households we interviewed. We feel that these circumstances would very likely be
replicated across other households, but more research is needed into the implications
of this policy, particularly in relation to more pro-active and client-centred policies,
which are being trialed in other areas of the state.13 Some tenants are defiant in the
face of the DoH (WA)’s authority and declare that they will not resile from their cultural
imperative to look after their kinfolk and refuse to leave anyone homeless who asks
for shelter. There are others who have declared that on account of fear of the policy in
principle or because they have acquired strikes according to the policy they will not
take any visitors.
By and large, people in Swan saw little that was good about crowding. They were not
referring to household density here so much as the stress caused by conditions in
which:
Their access to privacy or their children’s access to privacy could not be attained.
They could not privatise their food supply even though they had purchased it themselves.
Children fought and argued and pulled the parents into the quarrel, thereby causing a loss of social order among the household, and rendering them vulnerable to a neighbour’s complaint.
Circular mobility as a solution to homelessness was practised by some in order to
avoid causing friction in their host household. The problem to be taken note of here is
the length of time some of our interviewees had been practising circular mobility as a
hedge to homelessness. One woman had been practising circular mobility for this
reason for around 20 years and others had been engaged in it for some years.
A significant amount of this stress is attributed by our interviewees to poor housing
design in relation to Aboriginal culture. Consistently mentioned in this regard were:
The rooms are too small, bedrooms especially.
There are not enough four and five-bedroom houses.
There is no strategy for dealing with household expansion except evictions.
The land attached to houses is too small to prevent adequate sensory separation from non-Aboriginal neighbours.
As we have discussed in Section 6.4, our interviewees do have principles which guide
social order in households, especially with respect to the correct combination of
people in sleeping spaces. The purpose of these principles and the rules and patterns
that derive from them is to ensure that life in the household is ‘peaceful and quiet’; that
is, stress free and conflict free. Given adequate household space in which to practice
these cultural principles, Aboriginal people can achieve the lifestyle that most of them
so ardently desire, and which contributes to better health and education outcomes.
13
Attention is drawn to the new ‘tenancy matrix’ approach being trialed in the Kimberly which takes an approach based on transparent and open communication with housing clients, client responsibility towards housing, neighbours and community and a responsive approach to housing problems by DoH (WA). This program too will require further research to evaluate its benefits.
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7 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FINDINGS ACROSS CASE STUDY SITES
7.1 Research questions
The set of detailed research questions posed at the commencement of this project
were as follows:
1. What are the dimensions of crowding in Indigenous households?
2. How does this vary by geography? [modified form of this question]
3. What are the various drivers of crowding?
4. How do the drivers interact with housing variables?
5. How does crowding impact upon individuals and households?
6. At what point does density have negative consequences and become crowding?
7. What strategies do Indigenous households employ to cope with crowding?
8. What are the policy and program implications of crowding for housing providers?
With respect to Question 2, our methodology section in Chapter 1 discusses why we
were unable to obtain any meaningful representative sample across different tenure
types or dwelling types. Most of our interviewees were in rental housing stock.
Question 2 will therefore be constrained to simply ask, ‘How did the dimensions of
crowding in Indigenous households vary by geography’, meaning specifically by
metropolitan versus regional city settings.
Each of these research questions will be addressed in this chapter, except Question 8
which will be discussed later in Chapter 8.
7.2 Definitional note
In this chapter, we must continue to be careful to distinguish between the ‘etic’ use of
the concept ‘crowding’ and the ‘emic’ use of the word ‘crowding’; etic referring to the
use of a concept from an external or scientific point of view, and emic referring to a
group’s own perception of a concept. The ‘etic’ use of crowding is in accordance with
the social-science stress-based model of crowding as outlined in Chapter 1. The
‘emic’ use of the term ‘crowding’ has been provided by our interviewees, who
sometimes include a state of being stressed in the way they use the word, but in other
cases do not. Hence, at least one interviewee said ‘being crowded is good’ and a
number said they were crowded but not unduly stressed. In these cases they are
referring to high-density alone, rather than a stressful situation as we are defining
crowding.
7.3 Antecedent factors underlying and driving large household formation
In the preceding profiles of study sites, a number of structural drivers of household
formation and household expansion have been identified which addresses Research
Question No. 3 ‘What are the various drivers of crowding?’ These are factors that we
developed in our Positioning Paper model of crowding, and summarised in Chapter 1,
and are defined as ‘antecedent factors’, that is the precursors to crowding. We have
identified them as those that are beyond the everyday control of the householder and
that form a socio-environmental setting or type of field within which people experience
housing. Some of these factors may operate at the level of government and society
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rather than at the level of the householder, as we will further discuss in this chapter.
But as outlined in our theory-based model of crowding (adapted from Gifford 2007),
some of these antecedent factors have a culturally specific dimension, and refer to
deeply enculturated behaviours and values. We examine the findings on these
antecedent factors here. First we shall consider the externally imposed structural
factors such as housing market economy, government policies and service access
issues. Then we shall analyse the cultural drivers that are enculturated within
Indigenous societies.
7.4 Externally imposed structural drivers as potential antecedent factors of crowding
7.4.1 Demographics and overall shortage of housing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
Any discussion of crowding needs to be seen in the context of the chronic shortage of
Aboriginal housing throughout Australia that has been well documented by others
(see Long et al. 2007, pp.17, 71–73). Since the Commonwealth Government
undertook responsibility for Indigenous housing after the 1967 Referendum,
successive national audits of Indigenous housing have always indicated a substantial
backlog in relation to need. In all case study area participants commented on the
lengthy waiting lists for public housing and the shortage of affordable housing in
private rental markets. This was shown to be the case to varying degrees across all of
our case studies, and particularly in the regional cities of Mount Isa and Carnarvon
where there were ‘two-speed’ economies driven by mining.
In this regard, the effects of the two-speed economy varied across Carnarvon (and
probably Mount Isa). As has already been mentioned in this report and in other
reports, the incidence of secondary homelessness is reckoned to be high. One
element of secondary homelessness that reflects the two-speed economy quite
clearly is the situation of Aboriginal men and women who are employed. Their income
makes them ineligible for state public housing and most are unable to break into the
private rental market, partly due to the very high rentals in these areas, but possibly
also because of elements of discrimination in some cases. In the case of Carnarvon,
this was, to a certain extent, because one of the three estate agencies in town was
wholly devoted to accessing rental housing for large mining companies. This is a topic
for separate research, however, according to data obtained in other studies it is clear
that Aboriginal families find it most difficult to gain private rental housing. (Long et al.
2007, p.70; Birdsall-Jones & Corunna 2008; Birdsall-Jones et al. 2010)
Among the public housing tenants in Carnarvon, the situation was markedly different.
In relation to the limitations of their poverty and welfare income and housing, people in
DoH (WA) properties seemed largely satisfied with the housing economics of the
town. It seems highly likely that the DoH (WA)’s new strategy of home renovation and
improvements had a great deal to do with this, since repairs and renovations which
people had been requesting for many years were finally being dealt with. (Birdsall-
Jones & Corunna 2008)
For the 21 interviews in Mount Isa, their household sizes at the time of interview
ranged from 1–19, with an average of 10 persons (total 210 persons), representing an
average of 3 persons per bedroom using a conventional density measure.
For the 18 interviews (with 17 interviewees) in Inala, their household sizes ranged
from 4–17 people, with an average of 8.6 residents (total 154 persons) representing
an average of 2.7 persons per bedroom using a conventional density measure.
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In Carnarvon, the household sizes for the 13 interviews ranged from 3–18 persons,
with a total of 106 people, an average of 8.2 residents per household and 2.5
residents per bedroom using a conventional density measure. And in Swan after 18
interviews, the household sizes ranged from 4–20 persons, with a total of 168
persons, an average of 9.3 residents per household and 2.8 persons per bedroom
using a conventional density measure, noting that a shed was counted as a one-
bedroom space (Table 40).
Table 40: Average household sizes and persons per bedroom in each study site
Clearly from Table 40, the highest density in the four study sites occurred in Mount Isa
(10 persons), followed by Swan (9.3 persons), followed by Inala (8.6 persons), and
lastly Carnarvon (8.2 persons). Note that these were the household sizes at the time
of interview, and not necessarily at their peak of size due to visitor arrivals over the
previous year as recalled and discussed by the interviewees.
In all study sites, these household sizes increased when large numbers of visitors
arrived. The scale of visitation was often given according to the number of carloads of
visitors, for example 3–4 carloads of visitors staying at one time, translating to
between 12–30 visitors maximum, with such large visitation events happening at least
2–3 times and possibly up to 5 times a year. This could be termed ‘episodic large
household formation’.
7.4.2 House size and infrastructure—inadequacy of conventional rental houses for large households
Most houses across the case study sites were three-bedroom houses (39 out of a
total sample of 69) that had one main living area, one bathroom and bedrooms clearly
designed for a maximum of two children or two adults per bedroom. There were
notably more four-bedroom houses in the Western Australian site samples, bringing
down the overall average bedroom density for the study sites, in spite of some very
large households in the study.
Typically each main bedroom had been designed to accommodate a double bed but
not an additional cot or single bed. The storage provided in bedrooms varied greatly
with some having built-in wardrobes, and others without. Hence, in some cases, a
main bedroom with additional beds left very little room for clothing storage, a
television or a desk, which were often desired to be used in bedrooms. Secondary
bedrooms were very cramped, often furnished with a double bed or two single beds
and there was often very little room for clothing storage, schoolwork, games and other
children’s needs. The assumption inherent in these designs is that a conjugal couple
will use a main bedroom and their own modest number of children will use smaller
bedrooms, perhaps sharing, but only during the years when the children are young.
Such an assumption did not fit with the family patterns and needs of households in our
interviews.
Current housing designs are used in ways that are unlikely to have been anticipated
by the original designers, for example young children may share the same room with
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their parents or grandparents, and householder members sometimes sleep in kitchens
or dining rooms. Not unusually a couple and all their children must share one
bedroom. Other solutions such as kinfolk of a variety of ages and genders having to
distribute themselves around the lounge and dining room were not unusual. These are
unlikely to be arrangements intended by the original designers of the house, but they
are the sleeping solutions devised by the households within the physical parameters
of their current house designs.
The concept of crowding according to the CNOS is defined through notions of
appropriate sleeping spaces, with no reference to living room spaces. But the
provision of only one living area can catalyse crowding which is not related to
bedrooms, with activities in a diverse multi-generation household clashing frequently
in this space; for example, children sleeping and adults watching TV, or children doing
homework and adults talking or drinking (there is usually not room in children’s
bedrooms for a desk etc. because of large numbers of people sleeping in bedrooms),
and so on.
Such provision of household spaces, designed to align with assumed Western
behavioural norms, can cause stress and thus a sense of crowding because of
inadequate spatial and design fit with the cultural values of the household occupants.
Additionally, it makes certain activities such as attending to schoolwork, or workers
getting a good night’s sleep, very difficult to achieve because of inadequate
infrastructure support within the house.
7.4.3 Homelessness
One of our four study sites had a declared homelessness problem specific to
Indigenous people, 14 that of Mount Isa where a homeless strategy was being
implemented by a collaboration of government and non-government agencies.
Irrespective of the relatively low primary homelessness in our four study sites, all of
them were shown to have significant secondary homelessness in the form of stress-
defined crowding (in the etic sense) which masked the extent of true homelessness.
A number of the households we visited had temporary and semi-permanent visitors
who would otherwise be homeless. These were often kinfolk who may have been
evicted from a previous house, and now moving between places but not yet
established within a stable situation; or alternatively seeking refuge from a family
problem or even a natural disaster.
7.4.4 Current policy effects
The Queensland and Western Australia policies on maximum householder incomes
dictate that once above certain income limits, an individual or household may not
continue to occupy state government housing. Queensland Aboriginal householders
who earn more than specified incomes (which occurs most often later in life) cannot
afford a mortgage (their income often supports a large extended family, and they are
too old to be eligible for a 25 or 30-year mortgage and affordable rental
accommodation in a preferred area can be difficult to obtain), but they are no longer
eligible for state housing. In these circumstances, crowding would likely occur if they
were evicted from state housing on this basis and moved in with a relative.
Alternatively, stress would also occur as they work out ways to subvert the system,
such as finding other family members to take on the lease etc. Anecdotally, we
14
This has been commonly regarded as a primary homelessness problem in Mt Isa but recent research by Memmott and Nash (2012, forthcoming) indicates this perception arises from diurnal public-place dwelling rather than nocturnal rough sleeping. Most of the homeless people are accommodated at night in two emergency shelters, taken there by the police if necessary.
141
understand that this is rarely enforced in Queensland and evictions on this basis are
uncommon, nevertheless, the perception that such a restriction may come into place,
or the real threat of eviction (even if rarely followed through) can be very concerning
for householders. In Western Australia, in contrast, the policy is strictly enforced.
In Swan (Western Australia), the ‘three strikes policy’ added to crowding when people
were evicted, who then had to find emergency accommodation, possibly in the rental
houses of other kin. But this, in turn, also made people stressed about receiving
visitors in such circumstances, which may have then led to a ‘strike’ against their own
tenancy should a neighbour lodge a sustainable complaint against them.
It is to be noted that Carnarvon people did not mention in their interviews, any impact
of the ‘three strikes policy’. We would predict that the first impact that Carnarvon
people experience in this regard will be a newfound unwillingness of their southern
kinfolk to offer them housing for the customary long visit over the summer holiday.
Swan is not part of the Carnarvon mobility range and so no data was available in this
regard. The Carnarvon mobility range in Perth tends more towards the coastal
suburbs than the riverine suburbs. It would be useful to be able to perform research in
the Carnarvon attached Perth suburbs to find out if the ‘three strikes policy’ has had
any impact in this regard.
In Inala and Mount Isa, housing policy did worry tenants at times, with a number of
people complaining that they were concerned about being evicted if they had too
many people, or if their visitors were noisy. This added to their perceptions of being
crowded under a stress-based crowding model. The implementation of policy in Mount
Isa using a culturally sensitive ‘Housing Service Centre’ approach has led to lower
levels of arrears and more people staying in their tenancies. However, in both Inala
and Mount Isa, researchers were present on a few occasions when Department of
Housing staff arrived to ask tenants to comply with housing policy requirements or
face eviction; nevertheless the tenants did not identify a particular policy (such as the
Western Australian ‘three strikes policy’) about which they were specifically unhappy.
7.4.5 Access to services and recreational opportunities as a driver
Much Aboriginal circular mobility is generated by people in rural towns and remote
communities travelling to the regional centre to obtain particular services, e.g. health,
legal, dental or shopping. A clear finding of this study was that this could lead to
expanding households and potentially crowding, especially in Mount Isa.
Comparing the social life of Inala people with those interviewed in Mount Isa, Inala
people were harder to find at home and busier than our Mount Isa interviewees. This
suggests they had more options for activities in Inala, greater access to transport and
thus possibly also greater capacity to cope with changing housing circumstances and
influxes of people. People in Inala spoke more frequently about the kinds of activities
they would undertake within the community, such as going shopping, to the doctors or
football matches. This relatively rich social and cultural life in part attracts Indigenous
people to staying in Inala, and exacerbates crowding as those who await a house
while staying with family or friends choose to opt only for housing within Inala.
Housing in this suburb has a longer waiting list than many other suburbs that do not
have such a rich Aboriginal social and cultural life or as many services providing
structural support. Many people thus choose to wait in a house with high numbers of
occupants, rather than be housed elsewhere in another Brisbane suburb with more
limited social and service opportunities.
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7.5 Cultural drivers of large household formation as potential antecedent factors
This section addresses the research question of what cultural factors drive the
formation of large households in the Indigenous communities we studied. We found a
number of salient factors across the four study sites and discuss them below.
7.5.1 Kin ties, visitation and desires for an immersive sociality
Strong kin ties still operate in both the regional centres of Carnarvon and Mount Isa
and the metropolitan areas, such as Swan and Inala. These kin ties have implications
for visiting on a regular basis. In particular, kinship ties have a strong influence on the
processes that form, shape and reinforce people’s identity and sociality.
There is an important role for kin as carers of children providing an outlet for both
parents and children who need a break. This manifests in both local daily visiting to
see people for meals and to ‘catch up’, as well as longer distance visiting requiring
planning and saving for bus or plane fares. Even people with more distant kin (in Inala
up to 2000 km away and beyond to the Torres Strait Islands) are committed to
maintaining kin ties and this impacts on housing in terms of regular exchanges of kin
between distant home places and city locations, with large numbers of people sharing
houses during these visits.
This can be seen in a number of behaviours and at different scales:
Very few people ever sleep in their house alone. Company is desired and expected,
and people do not want to be alone on the whole. This applied at all study sites.
It is rare for babies and young children to sleep alone. We have found direct evidence
of this in our study. It would appear to be the norm across Aboriginal society that
babies and young children share the beds of their mothers or any of a variety of
kinfolk considered appropriate. These specific relationships are typically grandmother,
grandmother’s sister, mother’s sister and cousin-sister. The terms of access to an
infant regarding the mother’s sister and cousin-sister are limited by the girl’s age and
the judgment of the mother and the other women of the family regarding the girl’s
capacity to handle a young baby safely (Birdsall 1990; Birdsall-Jones 2003; Birdsall-
Jones & Corunna 2008; Birdsall-Jones et al. 2010; Musharbash 2008).
People rarely eat alone, preferring instead to gather to eat meals together. In Swan,
during daytime visiting at hub households, people would stay for meals. In Carnarvon,
we recall the hub household where a group of young men would gather for their lunch
break from work. In the Swan study group there was one hub household where
people gathered progressively throughout the day and into the early evening. Anyone
who was there when a meal was being prepared shared the meal with the base
household.
Funerals are a way of maintaining kin and social ties. They remain vitally important
ritual events in Australian Aboriginal societies and were a major cause of household
expansion at all sites.
People engage in social drinking and celebrating significant events together, but some
people also drink as part of a sub-culture shared by kin and social groups, and
households expand as a result. People are unlikely to drink alone if they can avoid it.
There are some households in which behaviour in these drinking parties is well
controlled and in these cases, the drinking never prevents the children having all their
needs seen to. Sometimes, as in Carnarvon, the children will be sent over to the
grandmother’s house for the occasion. However, there are other households where no
such control is exercised. These are the circumstances in which Aboriginal children of
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a wide variety of ages may be observed walking the street in groups through the night.
This has occurred in Mount Isa, Carnarvon and in other places. (Although it was not
included in this study, Roebourne has had a similar problem recorded. (McKenzie et
al. 2009)
Movement occurs between kin among the various houses of the towns or regions to
maintain ties and sometimes to move towards being closer to ‘country’. We discuss
this further below under ‘mobility’. It is a strong and important cultural driver of
visitation, and sometimes crowding. For example, one of the most frequent reasons
why people came to stay in Mount Isa was simply to visit their relatives. This is in
keeping with an earlier AHURI study of Aboriginal mobility in this region (Memmott et
al. 2006), in which kinship was found to be the key driver of circular mobility.
The cultural institution of demand sharing is very strong in these urban areas, despite
cultural change and living within Anglo-normative housing. The cultural rules are
adhered to at the expense of the house fabric if necessary, not vice versa. With
regard to managing demand sharing in housing, we can state (especially from the
Western Australian case studies) that there are rules of how to fit large numbers into a
house that are strictly adhered to, even though this may appear chaotic to one
unfamiliar with such rules. This will be discussed later.
In our study most householders were women, or women with male partners (Tables
15, 22, 28 & 35), and this is typical of general demographics in Indigenous Australia.
There were a few men as sole householders in Mount Isa, but these were largely what
could be called drinkers’ houses where the safety of children and women may be
compromised. The recurring role of Aboriginal women providing stable household
heads for large households with intergenerational families was noted in metropolitan
settings as early as the 1960s and 70s (Gale 1964, 1972; Smith & Biddle 1975), and
this seems to be a continuing pattern across Australia (Hammill 2001).
Mutual care of extended family was practiced across all our research sites and indeed
across all of Aboriginal Australia. It is clearly based in the deep structure of Aboriginal
culture. It leads to certain findings of this research such as the ‘permeable’ houses of
Inala. Interestingly, mutual care of the extended family can also alleviate crowding by
effectively ‘spreading the load’ of visitors in houses, providing a number of housing
alternatives. The strength of this cultural institution is indicated in a variety of ways,
one of the most significant of which is that sharing is an integral value of Aboriginal
identity.
In Queensland, ‘put-downs’ such as ‘coconut’ and ‘uptown nigger’ show the derision
reserved for people who do not observe the Aboriginal cultural institution of sharing
and reciprocity. In all jurisdictions, it is evident that policies, such as the Western
Australian ‘three strikes policy’ but also the restriction on numbers of residents,
responsibility for the behaviour of visitors falling on the householder, Western norms
of quietness, internalised living and so on, conflict with the cultural institutions of
demand sharing, large family gathering and externalised living, causing stress at a
variety of levels including those of householder self-identity and relationships across
the kin group.
7.5.2 Demand sharing and mobility
Demand sharing and mobility are closely linked cultural practices. People are mobile
in order to fulfil obligations and desires to see kin, and to access the hospitality they
afford through a demand sharing relationship. These practices are facilitated by
established rules and we discuss a number of ways in which these are made manifest
in the communities we surveyed.
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Demand sharing remains an important aspect of obligation to kin that was found to be
strong in both the regional and urban case study areas. Demand sharing operates as
a mechanism through which sharing of resources and money is managed within
usually a kin network or close social group, although involving non-kin was found to
be uncommon at the study sites. This extends to housing and as discussed in each of
the case studies, people are happy to both call on kin for housing help, and to provide
the same if circumstances require (reciprocity).
The back-and-forth movement of individuals between houses, suburbs and towns can
cause temporary or longer-term household expansion. As noted in our literature
review, this has been well documented in remote areas by Memmott et al. (2004) and
across a region that includes the Western Australian field sites that have been studied
(Birdsall 1990; Birdsall-Jones & Corunna 2008; Birdsall-Jones et al. 2010; Habibis et
al. 2011), and that we also found it in our present metropolitan and regional centre
sites. This was particularly the case in Mount Isa where there was a clear circular
mobility pattern operating throughout the North West Queensland and Central East
Northern Territory region.
Visitation in Mount Isa is in accordance with a regional socio-geographic pattern, in
keeping with the well-reported phenomenon of Mount Isa being the regional centre of
an Aboriginal cultural region, with people having a range of places where they can
reside in a ‘beat’ throughout the region. The pattern was also evident in our other
study sites, but the regions of visitor origin appeared to be less discrete due to more
complex historical factors of imposed residential movements by government
administrations throughout the 20th century.
It was noted in the previous section that kinship was the principal driver of mobility in
the North West Queensland region. In addition, accommodation of extended family for
significant recreational events in Mount Isa (viz. the Rodeo, the Royal Show & AFL
games) was given as one of the most frequently cited reasons for visitors coming to
Mount Isa. The third most frequently given reason for visitation was to attend funerals
and participate in mourning and grievance behavior. Other common reasons for
people from the wider region to stay with their relatives in Mount Isa were the need to
obtain health services, and to carry out shopping. Another category of visitors was
comprised of those relatives who had been recently released from Stuart Creek
Prison. Once visitors were staying in Mount Isa, their visitation could be unexpectedly
extended for various reasons.
Mobility at scales from intra-regional to intra-suburban influenced the ways in which
households operated on a daily, weekly and longer-term basis. A rhythm of local
residential movements over short periods was paralleled by longer-term and longer-
distance mobility. Key drivers of this were kin sociality, demand sharing, and the
presence of both permeable households and hub households, as defined earlier in
this report.
Staying with family is a way in which people cope with and/or avoid tertiary
homelessness. In Inala, this is often described as ‘looking for a place’. It was
reasonably common, and could last weeks or months. This process could occur at a
local scale: for example a sister staying for months while looking for another house in
the area; but could also include long-distance mobility. Some Inala households were
on a mobility circuit linking a home-country based kin group (e.g. St George) with
towns in between (i.e. in between the home country & Inala), where other kin may
reside.
One family in Inala described a pattern of circular mobility that ranged across the
southern parts of Queensland from St George to Inala, and Rockhampton, as various
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family members visited one another, but also awaited more permanent opportunities
for accommodation. This pattern of circular mobility does not end once employment is
taken up, as people frequently take up, change or quit employment in order to take a
break, move towns or concentrate on earning money for a time, but in a manner that
may not become permanent. Beckett (1965) and Birdsall (1988), among others
discuss mobility of this type. What is important to note is that those metropolitan
Aboriginal communities that we sampled, continue to maintain these kin-driven
mobility traditions. This can, in fact, be demonstrated in all of our field sites and it has
been discussed in a number of studies in these and other Aboriginal regions over the
years (Birdsall-Jones 2003; Birdsall-Jones & Corunna 2008; Birdsall-Jones et al.
2010; Memmott et al. 2006).
This kind of mobility also occurred in the Western Australian field sites, as reported in
the earlier chapters (Sections 5.3 & 6.3). Swan mobility ranged regularly into the
Wheatbelt Region and extended up to Geraldton as with the couple that travelled
regularly from Swan to Geraldton, who, as previously discussed were staying with
kinfolk because they had no home of their own. They shifted between kin related
households in order to avoid causing stress to these households. This couple was not
alone among our Swan study group. People in this position said that they were on the
waiting list for public housing, but seeing as they had been on the waiting list for
varying periods of up to ten years, they had no real expectation of ever being housed
properly.
Much more temporary, local mobility occurs when men who are drunk, or temporarily
unwelcome in their homes for various reasons, relocate to other family or friends in
order to avoid conflict or in response to a temporary eviction by the householder. With
regional differences, this was a common factor in all case study sites, and again
emphasises the permeability of households. Inala men did not usually find it difficult to
find a householder willing to take them in. In such circumstances, they called on their
kin and other obliged social networks to provide them with temporary accommodation.
Whether or not they can do this with such seeming alacrity depends on the size and
nature of their extended family of kinfolk. If there are not many kin-associated
households in the town, they may find it necessary to sleep rough for some period of
time. If their extended kin group is one of those that is well represented in the town,
they will find it easier to move from household to household. Eventually, however,
they are likely to wear out their welcome in all except those that are drinking
households. It is not unusual for men and women who abuse alcohol and/or drugs to
drive from town to town around the mobility range of their kin group. Certainly this is
the case in both Swan and Carnarvon (Birdsall-Jones & Shaw 2008).
Inala residents did seem to have more local mobility for socialising within the suburb
and greater choices of places to visit and activities to undertake, than Mount Isa
people. They were at home less often, relieving the claustrophobia that may come
from there being many people in the house, often going out to visit family and friends,
shopping, local clubs and pubs. This mobility combined with a desire for company and
intimacy meant that people would frequently stay over with family even when they
lived within the same suburb. In Inala, social connections can be maintained through
overnight or mealtime visiting, even when the householder may be busy or working
during the day.
Much daytime visiting seemed to be based on the desire for intimacy and company
with kin. The specific nature of these visits varied on the age, gender and life-stage of
the occupants, but often included socialising, eating main meals together, providing or
receiving child minding, drinking alcohol together and caring for those who were
housebound (e.g. the elderly or disabled). The desire to have company and not to be
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alone also aligns with known patterns of remote community Indigenous socialisation,
for example, as discussed in Yuendumu by Musharbash (2008, pp.95–111).
People in all our field study sites generally abided by the principle that family could not
be turned away if they needed or wanted somewhere to stay. This was seen as a core
obligation in having an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander identity, and has been well
discussed in literature on demand sharing (e.g. Peterson 1993; Macdonald 2000).
This was just as strong a value within the metropolitan communities as it was within
the regional centres. People were mindful of the fact that when they were granting
hospitality to their kin and friends, they were building up a store of goodwill and rights
to reciprocal visitation if needed in the future.
In Inala, people tended to share housing even with those who were not kin because
they felt obliged to help others, as part of their Indigenous identity. Ties to others,
even those who were not kin, were valued more highly than money or convenience. In
Inala, several women household heads thus stated that they would ‘help anyone’ and
were proud to offer a bed, food or company to people who had nowhere else to go. An
open door policy in known houses in Inala seemed to become known among
particular social groups and informal support mechanisms such as this permeability of
a house were taken up by those in need. Some offered support to particular groups
such as those recently released from the police watch house, or those who drank
alcohol in Inala’s parks. This form of social capital was afforded by having access to
housing and the means to provide food. Having a house with many people living there
already meant that extra visitors were easily able to share food, get access to
cigarettes and alcohol and fit easily into an already large and changeable group.
Being able to offer such a support was a point of particular pride for these
householders, who saw it as an expression of their Indigenous identity and evidence
that they were leading a proper life.
In Swan and Carnarvon, however, extending this practice to non-kin was less
common from our findings. Ordinarily providing housing to the homeless via demand
sharing in these places occurs mainly among kinfolk.
Like Inala, Mount Isa was also characterised by deep social structures involved in
hosting and sharing. Perhaps this was a feature of standing patterns of regional
mobility, inter-group exogamy and the capacity to emphasise classificatory
relationships through various mechanisms (skin, totem, ceremonial partners,
principles of respect, work mates) exhibited over many generations. Without in-depth
genealogical and historical research across all of our study sites, it is difficult to
explain the varying degrees of openness to hosting visitors who are not strong agnatic
or affinal kin.
7.5.3 Place attachments
Interviewees also chose to stay in houses with large numbers because of strong ties
to place, both specific houses and their association with kin, but also neighbourhoods
or towns. This was particularly conspicuous in our metropolitan study sites. Inala
people could gain houses in other suburbs but did not do so because of their desire to
be near social and kin groups, but also to be within a ‘Murri place’ with specific
services such as schools, kindergartens, health service, etc. This attachment is
closely linked to kin ties, but other factors are also important, and manifest in housing
choices.
Similarly we saw in Swan that people who were attached to that part of Perth, tended
to partner from that area and wanted to keep living in that place for social and cultural
reasons. This did not mean that they did not have country ties elsewhere. Some of
these attachments tended to extend into the Wheatbelt region north and east of Perth.
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Most people in our Swan study group had dual ties to countries according to parental
or grandparental affiliations. The region of the upper Swan River was a highly valued
country tie, probably because it had become so very controversial in the course of
native title rights proceedings in the Federal Court over recent years (Harvey 2011).
Conversely, in Mount Isa and Carnarvon, many people had strong attachments to
home country away from the town, and their mobility between these places reflected
this attachment.
No correlation between tenure type was possible given that so few home owners were
interviewed, but place attachment was present for people who lived in state
government rental housing, indicating that home ownership was not required for
people to develop or maintain an attachment to place that gave them a compelling
desire to stay in that location. The desire to keep living in a particular place for
whatever reason was a prevalent attitude; it was preferred rather than moving to
another suburb or town, even though it may have had more housing, better jobs, etc.
People across all sites seemed to want to stay in particular kin and social circles
based in particular places. It is a hard decision for an Aboriginal person to go to a
town where they have no kin.
7.6 Cultural patterns of household expansion
Following from our analysis of factors that drive the expansion of households, we can
describe the specific, culturally-driven patterns that emerged from our case study
sites.
When the various drivers of household expansion came to bear on our study sites, a
number of clear patterns were evident. Large household formation was categorised
into a number of types below, with the associated field study site noted:
daytime visitors from the local town or suburb who only stay overnight (M.I, IN, C, SW)
daytime visitors who do not stay overnight (M.I, IN, C)
visiting children from the local area, who either stay for the company of the host’s children or are left by relatives to be cared for by the householder (M.I, IN, C, SW)
visiting relatives from the wider region and beyond, which involves hosting for at least several days and often for weeks (M.I, IN, C, SW).
Note: a special subset of this last category is kin from the local area, being housed
because they have lost their house owing to the impact of a variety of external factors
(including eviction for non-compliance with housing policies) and will be staying for
periods of time from days to months (SW, IN).
7.7 Perceptions of stress and crowding by interviewees
While we define crowding as a state of stress induced by large numbers of residents,
we recognise in the model that this is perceived in a variety of ways and is
ameliorated by varying expectation and coping mechanisms.
7.7.1 Findings on stress in general
Note that one limitation of our study is that our analytic findings on crowding are
based on self-perceived and self-reported perceptions of stress by interviewers. It was
outside the scope of our research to correlate such perceptions with intrusive tests to
identify the presence of actual bodily stresses (e.g. blood pressure levels) during
crowding episodes. A second limitation of our study that needs to be pointed out, is
that the findings are largely from the viewpoints of the householders rather than the
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visitors. As one of our reviewers pointed out, the householder’s stress may occur
simultaneously with the visitor’s pleasure, e.g. in the case of visitors having an unruly
party. It would be useful to carry out a complementary piece of research to address
and compare both visitors’ and guests’ perceptions in large households, but this was
not within the scope of this study.
Let us address Question 6: ‘At what point does density have negative consequences’
and become crowding?’ There was no quantitative answer that we could find to this
question in terms of numbers of people in the house as a trigger to stress. Summary
findings of the perception of stress and crowding in case study sites are set out in
Table 41.
Table 41: Perception of stress and crowding in case study sites
a Of these, three said not usually, only under exceptional circumstances.
b Relatively mild responses; two said crowded but not stressed (overlaps with the previous two categories)
c Of these, three said they were very much crowded and stressed by this; two others were crowded but understood this to be temporary; and the other two felt crowded, but not dangerously so.
Of the 21 Mount Isa interviewees (of whom 20 had experienced high visitor numbers
in the past year), 9 reported experiencing stress from visitors in the past year while 12
indicated they did not experience stress from visitors in the past year. These were
mutually exclusive categories. However, of those four who actually said they were
crowded (bottom row in Table 41), only one fell into the ‘stressed’ category and three
fell into the ‘not stressed’ category. These latter three indicated they were able to
adequately manage their large households to avoid stress, so we interpreted this to
mean that they were using the term ‘crowding’ in the sense of high density rather than
stress, but they were of the view they needed larger houses.
Stressful situations were reported in Mount Isa by nine interviewees and included
visitors making noise when the householder was trying to sleep for the next day’s
work; unwanted drunks imposing; stress from children fighting; stress from pressure to
conform to tenancy regulations; stress from people looking into the yard; and stress
from lack of critical repairs and maintenance.
In Inala, many people with large numbers stated that they were not crowded,
however, a few did use this term and three declared this with vehement agreement,
reflecting high levels of stress and dissatisfaction with their current household
arrangements. One householder fell into the category of being crowded, despite a
relatively low number of people in her house, reflecting the stress-based nature of
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crowding. The solution that many proffered was not that people should leave the
house, but they should have more room to house these people in the current social
arrangement.
Similar reactions were noted in Carnarvon, where the behaviour of people within the
house rather than numbers of people per se were the important factor relating to
stress of householders. Of the four instances of household stress, only one of these
had a clear connection with numbers of visitors. This was C.4’s in-law’s house and
their solution was to temporarily send everyone out of the house for the afternoon.
The other three instances, however, had nothing to do with visitor numbers. C.3 was
stressed by the location of the house, situated within a predominantly White
neighbourhood and thus more accurately a focus of neighbourhood crowding than
house crowding. She and her family were more tradition and country oriented than the
usual town dwellers, and she anticipated problems with the neighbours because she
doubted that they would take a lenient view of her household’s lifestyle. C.9 and her
daughter were the only visitors in a three-bedroom house in which both the
leaseholder and her husband were very ill. They were reputed not to want any visitors
at all, but could not find it within themselves to say no to C.9 and her daughter. As a
compromise, they insisted that like C.4, C.9 and her daughter must vacate the house
every afternoon. C.11, the foster mother, did not see her problem as the numbers of
children she fostered. Rather, she blamed the inadequacy of the design of the house
to meet the ordinary everyday patterns of life in her household.
In Swan, there were many more instances of household stress than there were in
Carnarvon. Out of 18 interviewees, 11 said that they were experiencing stress related
to their housing. Four of these were directly related to the ‘three strikes policy’. One
woman was in the process of fighting an eviction order, the second had acquired one
strike, and one young woman was housing her in-laws who had been evicted under
the ‘three strikes policy’. The fourth interviewee and her household had been evicted
immediately following a home invasion, which they were powerless to prevent.
The remainder were experiencing housing-related stress for a variety of reasons, but
only one of these cited high household resident numbers as the cause of the stress.
The rest were things such as inadequate large rubbish collection, the size of the
bedrooms, and other design issues.
Women were the primary householders in most houses we studied, and there was a
particular stress issue attached to this. Sometimes there were male spouses who
were also part of the household as co-heads, but often these persons were not
recorded on the tenancy agreement so that status as a ‘single parent’ could be
maintained. Living with this deceit is sometimes stressful and makes householders
vulnerable to demands that others may place on them if they know that their tenancy
could be breached for having a spouse at their house. This can restrict a
householder’s ability to control house resident behaviour, particularly if the
householder is young.
Thus, according to our interviewees, household expansion per se was not directly
leading to stress (refer to Table 41). This aligns with our model of crowding where the
model speaks to factors other than housing density as being important in contributing
to stress and therefore crowding in the etic sense.
7.7.2 Stress and large households
Some Inala people stated that they did not feel stressed by large numbers of people in
their house, and would not consider their circumstances crowded. These were often
houses that were more tolerant of a more ‘chaotic’ way of living and who were used to
such a situation. In these cases the values of sharing, intimacy and company were
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more highly regarded than tidiness, order or routines. Those who valued tidiness,
order and routines (self-stated), found large numbers in the house to be more
stressful, but nevertheless they also felt they should fulfil their obligations to house
people and ‘just cope’. They coped by retreating to their bedroom or visiting other
people’s houses that had fewer people, or by ‘growling’ at people to obey their stated
household rules.
Across our study sites, we generally found that young women seemed to find it more
difficult to maintain their houses as they would like (but also generally their houses
were less chaotic), and felt more stressed than older women household heads. These
younger women considered themselves crowded, despite sometimes having fewer
people in their houses than those who were not stressed and did not consider
themselves crowded. Relatively few households with men as heads were interviewed
so a general sense of their coping mechanisms is difficult to assess from our findings.
Vulnerability to household expansion through loss of housing amenity is another
perceived way of losing control. Loss of housing amenity is a frequent problem for
Indigenous people who are open to household expansion, especially those on low
incomes and with strong patterns of sociality (propensity to host visiting kin and
countrymen). Vulnerability to household expansion also increases the likelihood of
out-of-control bills and difficulty in maintaining food in the house because of large
visitor numbers. These lifestyle factors also combine to yield a negative assessment
in application for a private rental house. Loss of housing amenity, resulting in an
unliveable house, can cause other households to expand as the original house is
abandoned. This was a factor in the Carnarvon study group, but the DoH (WA) was,
fortuitously, for the first time in many years, responding to the housing amenity needs
of public housing tenants. Abandonment of the house on account of loss of housing
amenity was therefore no longer occurring in Carnarvon. In the Queensland case
study sites we did not encounter anyone who had suffered loss of housing amenity,
but it was a worrying issue for some Inala and Mount Isa people. We did not find any
people who were staying with one another for this specific reason (but see Positioning
Paper for remote community examples (Memmott et al. 2011)).
Severe loss of housing amenity (toilets, showers, power, cooking facilities, climate
control) is thus an extreme form of stress that can result from constant large
household presence and impact in a house too small or not sufficiently durable to
withstand such physical wear and tear.
Two forms of stress emanating from the other people in the wider neighbourhood
were recorded. While most interviewees claimed not to experience stress from their
approved visitors, many experienced stress from the random infringements of drunken
behaviour on the streets of the suburb of Pioneer in Mount Isa. A second
neighbourhood stress problem was the case of an inter-family and inter-tribal
reverberating feud. This affected a range of residents and extended to a
neighbourhood crowding syndrome.
In summary, factors causing stress for our interviewee sample that contributed to and
partly generated a sense of crowding included:
unwanted behaviour of visitors and householders (e.g. drinking, fighting, children fighting)
loss of level of control by householder
lack of skills and support from others in the household
economic vulnerability of the household
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status of the householder (e.g. without adult children for back-up, lacking ability to ‘growl’, without a respected spouse)
poor state of repair of the house
lack of outdoor amenities of the house, e.g. outdoor areas, large backyard, veranda spaces, sheds
neighbourhood crowding and feuding issues
female tenant maintaining the deceit of being single when covertly having a spouse living in the house (technically a single mother, in the eyes of the local housing department office)
loss of housing service amenities (power, gas, water, cooking/ablution hardware)
threats from housing managers to tenancy, e.g. in Swan, the ‘three strikes policy’.
7.7.3 Loss of personal control as an antecedent factor that diminishes ability to cope with high numbers
Loss of personal control does create feelings of crowding, as evidenced in all of our
case study sites. Factors that contribute to feeling crowded include a householder’s
inability to prevent drinkers and partying visitors from entering or trashing a house or,
eating all of the household’s food, etc.
Loss of control over who stays is exacerbated by a lack of alternative accommodation
and financial inability to pay for alternatives. This is particularly prevalent in Mount Isa
and Carnarvon, where the quantity of affordable local housing stock is severely limited
and currently under excessive demand. As has been shown in other studies
(McKenzie et al. 2009), this situation must be reaching a crisis point in many
Australian mining towns undergoing economic growth.
The loss of control over who can see into the premises also caused stress for some
people, e.g. in Mount Isa people desired not to be watched in a panopticon type
experiment, and many people had responded by erecting makeshift fences and
screens to block people’s view into their yards. In Swan and Carnarvon, Aboriginal
people regularly hung window coverings. These were rarely actual curtains, and
mostly people hung blankets, bedspreads, or sheets across the windows. They did
this for the same reason as the Mount Isa people. They simply did not want people to
be able to gaze upon them from the street or from neighbouring houses. It was
considered both improper and a matter of privacy.
Loss of desired privacy, in fact, is among the most devastating manifestations of loss
of control. The nature of this privacy is not personal isolation, but the capacity of the
situation to permit people to be with only those whom they wish to be with from
moment to moment. Certain social attributes improve the individual’s capacity to
command privacy of this nature. From our findings, the social attributes that helped an
individual to be assigned a room allocated to them and therefore under their own
control included the individual’s status in terms of age and social worth, and whether
or not they were young parents with very young children.
As we have seen in our case studies, householders assessed and valued these social
attributes of their visiting kinfolk in various ways in order to arrive at the optimum
distribution of people within living and sleeping spaces according to the householder’s
own understanding of the principles and rules of Aboriginal culture appertaining to
these situations.
Factors of neighbourhood crowding came into play here too, as people lost control
over the noise levels, violence and being near to feuding families etc. This was rarely
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encountered in Inala, but was a strong factor in Mount Isa people’s lives, depending
on their suburb, some of which had an atmosphere of vigilance and security.
Additional loss of control that becomes cumulative can add to levels of personal
stress, making people more susceptible to feeling crowded. The toll of constant
deaths, particularly of people who are young or who die prematurely or preventably,
unemployment, constant change and social chaos all contribute to higher than
average levels of stress among the Indigenous population compared to the general
population, according to the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social
survey (NATSISS 2008).
7.8 Mediating factors that prevent or alleviate stress
Across the case study sites we encountered a range of responses to large household
numbers, from a complete lack of stress, to high levels of stress and therefore
crowding, according to our etic definition. The coping mechanisms for crowding
address Research Question No. 7 (What strategies do Indigenous households employ
to cope with crowding?) and can be discussed as mediating or antecedent factors, in
our model of crowding. People’s individual skills and attitudes, as well as cultural
factors acted as mediating factors to reduce potential stress from high numbers. We
did also note that some cultural factors acted to potentially increase stress and we
discussed these in Sections 1.2. and 1.3.
A number of strategies were outlined that allowed case study householders to
minimise or prevent stress occurring:
1. Sharing visitors by sending any excess visitors on to another hosting kinsperson (M.I, IN).
2. Informing visitors regretfully that the house is ‘full up’ without actually denying them outright (C, SW).
3. Firm administration of house rules by householder (M.I, IN).
4. Protocol not to let one’s spouse manage one’s own visiting relations (M.I).
5. Hunting drunks away (M.I, IN).
6. Use of visual screens on front fences and verandas (M.I).
7. Calling police or other authorities when things get out of control (M.I, IN).
8. Careful management of relationships with neighbours to avoid conflict over noise and living conditions (M.I, IN, SW).
9. Sending visitors out of the house for a period of time every day in order to give the householders some ‘peace and quiet’ (C).
10. Exchanging houses across the mobility range to provide schoolchildren with a holiday (C).
11. And most importantly: Employing sociospatial principles and rules in organising the sleeping spaces of large households (including those with visitors) (M.I, IN, C, SW).
We discuss these mediating mechanisms in detail here.
7.8.1 Firm administration of house rules
The firm administration of house rules by householders (item 3) included control of the
alcohol behaviour of both regular householders and visitors, encouraging visitors to
contribute resources, and turning away unwanted drunk people.
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When household size expanded with visitors, people were found to commonly use the
lounge/dining room for sleeping as well as a range of external spaces on the
periphery of the house and in the yard, in addition to all of the bedrooms. In using
external spaces for sleeping and socialising, some visitors arrived with tents or self-
nominated to sleep on a veranda in an external tin shed or carport due to their
longstanding visitation expectations and practices with their host. However, if there
were too many people opting to sleep inside the house, the householder may have to
designate certain people to sleep outside in such spaces, most commonly single men.
Some tenants’ yards had been adapted and equipped with hearths for such outdoor
socialising and living, similar to the norm in other bush communities and rural towns.
There was a custom of people camping in their host’s yard, even cooking bush game
in ground ovens.
Personal expectations also played a role in the experience of stress. In addition to a
person’s cultural values were their personal values of how a home should be kept and
what constituted acceptable behaviour. Many Indigenous people held strong Christian
beliefs or had particular family values of cleanliness and orderliness that were not
culturally uniform. This may affect the tolerance of large numbers of people flowing
into a household, or it may determine the householder’s response to such visitors, for
example those who have rules about visitors not drinking in their homes, or swearing
near their children.
The ability to assert these household rules effectively was a skill that seemed to
develop over the life course in all study sites, and more so for people who had stable
housing, over decades. The development of such agency and authority over visitors is
often learned through years of hard work and struggling to assert rules within a highly
connected group, while not causing family or social rifts that would jeopardise
relationships.
A finding of our study then, was that older women predominated as the heads of those
large households with stable tenancies and firm household rules. This presence of
such matriarchs, combined with their strongly held value of accommodating needy kin,
mitigates against the idea of promoting smaller-sized (e.g. 1-bedroom), more
manageable houses for such elderly women, even though this option may be
desirable for at least some elderly people.
7.8.2 Management of people within households
Ability to cope with high-density households could be described as a component of
social capital. Being able to manage large household numbers effectively can include
having other places to house visitors when they arrive, such as family and friends in
the same neighbourhood, having the means to afford their food and transport needs,
and having the capacity to organise the household to cope with larger numbers. This
sharing of visitors between households (item 1) in a local area was noted in our case
study sites on Mount Isa and Inala.
This mediating factor involves demand sharing, being able to ask kin to house one’s
visitors, but it also involves the personal skill of the householder, to negotiate such
movement, remain on good terms with many others to ensure such requests are
granted. The person requesting such assistance must know which other households
are viable locations for such overflow through a deep and accurate knowledge of each
local household’s residents, and what stresses are being felt by those householders
and occupants, to make this work as an effective technique for alleviating stress
caused by high numbers.
Housing amenities and infrastructure impact because in order for the house to be
used in this way it must be well maintained, up to standards and therefore able to
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cope with a temporary extra load. Additional loads on a house, however, do take their
toll over time, both in terms of the house infrastructure, which wears out more quickly,
thereby limiting the householders’ ability to cope with increased numbers.
Similarly, in Swan and Carnarvon, householders sometimes informed potential visitors
that there was no room at a particular house (item 2) and that they were unable to
stay at the present time, possibly knowing or recommending alternative options for
those potential visitors. These methods respond to and acknowledge people’s need
for accommodation while not denying them outright, and demonstrate that the
householder may already be fulfilling prior obligations to house kin.
Community infrastructure also affects these experiences, such as women’s refuges
and homeless hostels that can take visitors who may have particular needs if they can
no longer be housed by family or friends. These facilities were available in Mount Isa,
and the process of housing department officers assisting householders to move
difficult visitors into these alternate forms of accommodation seemed to be operating
very effectively (Memmott & Nash 2012, forthcoming).
Other factors noted in the management of people within households including
protocols about managing one’s own kin rather than placing a spouse in this role (item
4). This prevented difficulties between a spouse and their in-laws and the closer
relationship based on family of origin was used to smooth out difficulties that may
arise. Nevertheless this could cause problems if a spouse was unable to be firm with
their kin and other members of the household could feel stressed but unable to act.
More specialised management of visitors and regular residents was used in some
cases, such as sending visitors away each day to relieve the stress of the
householders (item 5), and sending children to kin during school holidays for a break
(item 10) There may be other household-specific coping mechanisms in place that
individuals derive on a needs basis.
7.8.3 Management of neighbourhood crowding
People derived specific techniques to prevent neighbourhood crowding including the
careful management of neighbour relationships (item 8), letting neighbours know
about parties, visitors and warning them of potential disruption, as well as being
friendly and cultivating good relationships of an everyday basis. Visual barriers to
prevent both residents and neighbours from feeling overlooked were commonly used
in Mount Isa (item 6).
Management of specific problems within neigbourhoods such as drunks intruding into
yards, or becoming unruly in houses and needing to be ‘hunted away’ (item 5) were
used by both Inala and Mount Isa people at times, in part to manage neighbourhood
crowding, and in part for householders own comfort. Many householders were specific
that they did not tolerate excessive drinking around their children or their visitors’
children. At times householders had a policy of calling police to step in and manage
such issues (item 8), aware that support is sometimes needed to alleviate difficult
situations and to ensure the safety and reduce the stress of household residents.
7.8.4 Sociospatial principles in organising visitors, living at the limit of the rules
An important mediating factor is the application of culturally specific sociospatial
principles for arranging people within a house (item 11). Large numbers of people at
high densities can be managed in Indigenous homes because there are rules
pertaining to permitted and prescribed group formations in the arrangement of
sleeping space. These are the rules that apply in ordinary everyday situations, but in a
situation of crowding, people are living at the very limits of those rules. The rules
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appertaining to group formation in households are intended to maintain proper
relationships and accepted standards of behaviour and ultimately peaceful, stress-
free, living. In applying these rules to the situation where numbers of residents in the
house are increasing, householders must make decisions that apply the rules in
innovative ways but always with the same objectives. These objectives are to uphold
Aboriginal morality in order to maintain good social order, respect and avoid shame
for residents.
It may appear that sheer numbers are the primary problem in the situation of crowding
and it certainly is a motivating issue and constraining dimension. However, the
primary problem is how to manipulate the age, gender and conjugal relationships
among people. The principle which must be satisfied is that the age and sexuality of
the occupants of a bedroom must not be in conflict. In a house of limited size with a
large household, application of this principle will not produce arrangements that are
optimal, or even equitable. Giving the single men a room all to themselves in which
they will drink and carry on into the late night hours may seem an extravagant use of
bedroom space. But it keeps them all in one place rather than roaming around the
house, and it keeps their noise behind a closed door. Relatively speaking, the women
and girls will be safer going to the toilet in the night if the toilet is located closer to the
women’s room, without having to pass the room for the young men. Housing density
is important with regard to the adequacy of the dwelling’s health hardware in relation
to the numbers of people relying on it. People can tolerate cold showers and
limitations on toilet facilities for some months. However, what they cannot tolerate is
inappropriate combinations in sleeping space.
Thus, extreme situations of high household numbers cannot always be maintained,
but the reason they cannot be maintained is not solely due to the numbers. The
extreme situation of crowding is reached when the house cannot be made to
accommodate the inhabitants according to the rules governing acceptable
combinations of people according to age, gender and conjugal status. These are the
rules that keep people safe, partly by permitting them to show proper respect for the
status of kinfolk relative to one another, and avoiding combinations of people who will
be shamed by the arrangements foisted upon them. If the social barriers that should
operate between or among people cannot be maintained, social order breaks down
and violence may break out. Inhabitants will begin to desert the house, beginning with
the most vulnerable individuals; women and their children.
An example is a drinking household in Carnarvon. They were happy to take in a family
of their homeless kinfolk, but because it was a drinking household, they did not
maintain the security of the house. It was an ‘open’, or permeable house, that is, one
which people seemed to be able to enter and wander the house freely. The family of
homeless kinfolk included adolescent girls and they found this situation intolerable.
They felt their safety was threatened because it was mainly adolescent boys and men
who were wandering the house freely, with no announcement and no restriction on
which rooms might be off limits. This situation had the effect of breaking the visiting
family up. The girls left their parents and went to stay with other kinfolk in the town.
Their mother was quite upset by this, but as she pointed out, this was not her house.
She could not make the rules. Thus it is not the high numbers of residents per se, but
the stress induced by the breakdown of the rules governing everyday life in the
household. This is a situation that clearly cannot be maintained. Note that the concept
of a ‘permeable house’ can therefore involve two sub-categories: one in which despite
high degrees of access, behavioural rules are maintained, and one in which such
rules are not vigorously maintained as in the above case.
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7.8.5 Discerning rules from principles in managing sleeping space
Collectively, we found a number of different allocations of sleeping space in the
homes of our interviewees, and indications of stress when allocations were
inappropriate (Chapters 3–6). The problem was to develop a means whereby we
could transform these allocations from simple lists to a systematic understanding of
how our Aboriginal interviewees decided upon these particular arrangements at
particular times, in particular circumstances.
As noted in Chapter 1, to this end a projective data gathering technique was carried
out in Carnarvon, which permitted householders to show the researcher dynamically
how people were allocated sleeping spaces. This was a simple process of providing
an outline floor plan of the dwelling and providing the householder with game pieces,
such as chess or checkers pieces, to represent individuals needing sleeping space.
By this means, the researcher could forensically question the actual process of
making these decisions.
The basic principle of allocating sleeping space in an Aboriginal household is that the
age, gender and status of the inhabitants of the space must not be in conflict.
However, this is a very broad statement and might reasonably be said of a number of
societies. Our task was to discover the particular Aboriginal understandings of this
principle. The technique proved very successful.
In the Aboriginal setting, in circumstances of crowding in which a conventional three to
four-bedroom house must be made to accommodate 20 or more people, there must
be ways of putting people together in shared sleeping space in ways that do not
wholly overset Aboriginal notions of propriety. In order for social behaviour to remain
consistent with the overarching principle guiding propriety, the following rules were
discerned in the course of the data gathering technique.
Boys and girls who are judged to be past being little kids may not share the same bed, but—if they are prepubescent and young adolescent they may share a room.
No one excepting quite young children may share a room with a conjugal couple who were regarded as being completely adult.
Correspondingly, a father and his daughter may not share a bedroom once his daughter is judged to be ‘getting big’, or acquiring the socially recognised sexual features of femininity.
Not every room in the house will necessarily be used to accommodate the excessive numbers of kinfolk seeking a place to stay.
A young mother and her children, or a young couple who are members of the usual household, and who regularly contribute to the running costs of the house will not necessarily be made to take in visitors.
In contrast, an elderly couple will very likely take some of the younger grandchildren in to sleep with them.
There are differences among cultural groups regarding the sharing of sleeping space
among opposite gender adolescents and adults. For example, among Nyungar people
in Swan it was found:
Sibling status negates the need to separate adult and older adolescent individuals.
A partnered woman may be able to share sleeping space with her brother or male cousins, but she can never share sleeping space with her husband’s brothers or male cousins.
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A man who is with his partner may share sleeping space with his partner’s sisters and female cousins.
However, among inland groups from the Carnarvon hinterland, opposite gender
adolescent and adult kinfolk may never share sleeping space. It is always the case
that visiting couples ought to be given privatised sleeping space, but this is not always
possible.
There is a disassociation between the role of a parent and the role of conjugal partner.
This disassociation plays a part in the restrictions on what social categories of kin may
share sleeping space. Among Nyungar people, in the case of the young married
couple, the wife’s sisters and cousin-sisters may share the room if they are similar in
age or younger than the wife.
Where possible, the householder (or lead tenant, head tenant, boss for place) will give
a couple a room of their own and, in these circumstances, younger persons must give
way to older. Therefore, if the householder has two of her children and their spouses
living with her and only one room is available, the older of her children and his/her
partner will get the room on their own. The best offer that the younger couple and their
children may get is to make up their bed in the lounge room every night. Provided this
is a situation in which no-one else is required to sleep in the lounge room on a regular
basis, the younger couple may well accept this situation. However, if the house
becomes severely crowded, then the older adolescent boys and girls will be sleeping
in the lounge-dining room.
There are three emotional concepts that are paramount in analysing situations of
household crowding and they are respect, shame and jealousy. A couple needs
others to respect the relationship between them. An important element in garnering
this respect is to avoid situations that might call their partnership into question. The
ways in which they behave holds meaning for others observing their partnership.
The response to the violation of respect is shame, and one response to shame is
jealousy. This is a very complicated phenomenon, as outlined in our Positioning
Paper, and it has to do with the nature of social control and personal agency in
Aboriginal society, and if people fail to show proper respect for one another, the
situation may cascade into serious conflict (Memmott et al. 2011, pp.38–39). Children
can, unwittingly, be the instigators of these situations. In situations of crowding,
children can come into conflict with one another, because they make each other
angry, sometimes because they take each other’s belongings and sometimes
because they cannot resist teasing each other. Parents will be drawn into these
conflicts, seeking to maintain order and fairness among the children and this may
draw other adults of the crowded house into disagreement with each other as to what
exactly has happened and what should have happened. This is probably the most
common source of conflict in a crowded house.
By comparison, without using this projective technique that was piloted in Carnarvon,
the findings from Queensland in our study are not so refined and nuanced.
Nevertheless, the principles elicited in other centres, generally conform to the
structural principles outlined above. For example, to reiterate the rules as they were
recorded in Mount Isa: First the rule of division by gender and generation prescribed
that single visitors, whether children or adults were integrated with other single people
in the household and divided into different spaces by gender. Second, a key rule of
prioritisation was that visiting elderly people, mothers with babies and children
received priority to stay inside the house; while others may be relegated to stay
outside in the yard, on verandas, in carports or garden sheds when the numbers were
too high. A sub-rule of the above prioritisation rule was that visiting young couples
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with a baby or infant(s) were given their own room. A further recurring rule was that
the boys of the household, who normally occupied their own room, were moved out to
the lounge so that adult visitors could take the boys’ room. Third, two diametrically
opposed rules emerged concerning the sleeping place of the head householders.
Several such persons (all single householders) said they vacated their bedrooms for
visitors and slept on the lounge room couch, whereas other householders said they
retained the master bedroom exclusively for self (and partner if relevant), irrespective
of visitor needs or demands.
The structure of the rule-driven nature of Aboriginal household management does not
exist as a world apart from the rest of Aboriginal belief systems. Rather the various
facets, or aspects of Aboriginal life are inter-dependent and the evidence for this may
be seen in the ways in which principles for one feature of Aboriginal life derive from
another. We may refer to such a source principle as a meta-principle. The most
powerful motivating principle of Aboriginal life is the injunction that rights and
obligations are reciprocal and concurrent. This is often put as ‘Aboriginal people look
after one another’. While this may seem a simple and common sense statement, the
fact that it lies at the heart of motivation for social behaviour is what makes it a meta-
principle, that is, an over-arching principle from which many other things derive. For
example, it is often stated that oldest looks after youngest and youngest obeys oldest.
This principle is one articulation of the meta-principle regarding reciprocal rights and
obligations. In the anthropological literature this has been expressed as ‘demand
sharing’. However, there is also embedded here the value of respect for older people.
The rules that derive from principles are far easier for people to state initially. For
example, boys and girls who are close kin, who are judged to be past being little kids,
may not share the same bed, but if they are prepubescent and young adolescent they
may share a room. To have them share a bed would be inappropriate, calling forth a
sexual theme that should not exist between these kinfolk. Another rule is that a man
who arrives with his partner and children must be given a room on their own, but a
man who arrives with his children but without his partner can quite appropriately be
given sleeping space in the lounge room. He can even share this sleeping space with
his adolescent sister, although they would likely sleep on opposite sides of the room.
7.8.6 Final comment on Aboriginal kinship and household rules
Although we clearly generated significant findings on kin-based rules as they apply to
the dynamics of large households at our study sites, there is no simple way to
generate a set of universal rules on this behaviour for all of Indigenous Australia.
Unravelling traditional kinship systems across the continent as a topic engaged many
early and mid-20th century anthropologists who demonstrated immense diversity and
complexity across different regions. Furthermore all Indigenous groups in Australia
have since undergone different processes of cultural change, both qualitatively and
quantitatively (through varying time depths), and these processes have transformed
the traditional kinship systems in different ways. (This whole topic is one obviously
worthy of more empirical research.)
7.9 A model of Indigenous crowding for Aboriginal Australia
One of the earlier questions that was asked was: ‘Do we need to revise or refine the
Gifford Model of crowding for Aboriginal Australia?’ The case study findings,
combined with existing understandings derived from the literature make it possible to
proffer a preliminary model of Indigenous crowding in Australia. We endorse Gifford’s
model of crowding as stress-based, and can offer further specific factors that come
into play as what he terms ‘antecedent’ and ‘mediating’ factors that affect the levels of
stress actually felt by residents. As we have discussed, these include structural and
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cultural factors as antecedent, driving crowding; and cultural, personal and social
mechanisms for mediating, coping with large numbers to reduce stress and therefore
crowding. These antecedent and mediating factors are transactional in nature. At
times they act to increase crowding; at times they act to alleviate it.
It is important to note that structural factors beyond that of the house, the individual
and their culture are influential. The availability or scarcity of housing, the economic
wealth and social capital of the surrounding community and the management strategy
of housing providers or landlords also have a large influence on the generation and
perceptions of crowding and the capacity to cope with high-density situations.
Some eleven mediating factors as employed by Aboriginal householders in our survey
were elicited earlier. The most critical of these appeared to be:
firm administration of house rules by the householder
sharing visitors among kin
sociospatial principles and rules in organising the sleeping spaces of large households, as discussed above.
7.10 Differences between the four case studies, metropolitan versus regional cities
Question 2 of our research questions asked: ‘How do the dimensions of crowding in
Indigenous households vary by geography?’
We have attempted to tease out differences between metropolitan sites and regional
centre sites, to better understand the factors that cause crowding. Among the most
obvious differences between the Western Australian field sites were the relative
proportions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in the two locations. In
Carnarvon, the Aboriginal population has been at least 19 per cent for many years
(Chapter 2). In Swan, the Aboriginal population of Swan was 2.7 per cent of the total
population at the 2006 Census, and again, has been at this level for some years. This
disparity between proportions of the population can make an important difference
between the attitudes of non-Indigenous households toward their Indigenous
neighbours. In general, it appeared that there was more understanding of Aboriginal
households in Carnarvon and thus fewer complaints to the local office of the DoH
(WA).
Similarly in Queensland, the regional centre of Mount Isa had a much higher
Indigenous population of 16.6 per cent (and rising steadily over the past 10 years or
more) compared to 7.3 per cent and fairly stable in Inala. Contrary however to the
Western Australian situation, in Mount Isa there seemed to be greater issues of
neighbourhood crowding and intervention from the DoH compared to Inala, where
people seemed generally happier with their neighbours and the housing
arrangements. The strength of the Indigenous community in Inala, having a higher
percentage of population compared to the Swan situation, may make people feel
more secure in their housing and may also provide more households among which kin
can be spread, reducing crowding pressure on householders. Inala’s high level of
public housing overall may also reduce stress induced by neighbours: in Inala 32.3
per cent of households are in public housing (ABS 2007b) compared to 4.4 per cent in
Swan (ABS 2007d).
Within the regional centres of Carnarvon and Mount Isa, people’s kin and social
groups were more proximate; they were more able to walk to their commonly visited
households. One possible negative consequence of such density at the
neighbourhood scale is neighbourhood crowding, which was discussed by the Mount
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Isa interviewees in Pioneer, both in terms of the current and recent situation and also
experiences in the past. Carnarvon interviewees did not discuss such neighbourhood
crowding issues as being currently problematic, but had experienced such situations
in the past.
In the metropolitan cities there seemed to be more intra-community mobility among
Indigenous households. This may be caused by the more distributed nature of living
within a much more intercultural neighbourhood than in the regional centres, where
Indigenous populations were similar in numbers, but more densely concentrated in
particular suburbs. In Inala and Swan, people needed to travel more within their
community to see their kin and social groups. Nevertheless, an accurate and detailed
knowledge of who was staying within each household and of the extended kin network
was still known in these areas, helping people to spread kin among other’s houses,
and allowing for the customary demand sharing, visiting and immersive sociality.
This disparity in proportion of the population also appeared to make a difference
between attitudes toward the experience of crowding in the two field sites. Household
population density mattered in Swan in a way that it did not in Carnarvon. It seemed
that it was possible for Carnarvon people to predict, in general terms, how long a
crowding density situation would last whereas in Swan, this was more difficult due
partly to the insecurity arising from the ‘three strikes’ policy. In Carnarvon there were
very few households where crowding density at high levels lasted more than a month,
whereas in Swan there were people who had been living at very high densities for
some years.
Different kinds of crowding stress seem to be shown in these contrasting situations. In
Mount Isa with its high density of Indigenous people in public housing in the suburb of
Pioneer, neighbourhood crowding caused by other Indigenous people becomes an
important stressor. In Swan, however, low levels of Indigenous population within a
largely private rental and freehold suburb can cause stress as people feel relatively
vulnerable to non-Indigenous neighbour’s complaints under the Western Australian
‘three strikes’ policy. Mount Isa residents’ levels of stress and crowding may be
exacerbated at the present time by a severe housing shortage and high rental costs
associated with the current mining boom.
The material wealth of people in Inala seemed to be greater than in Mount Isa, but a
strong ethic of sharing was still evident. In Inala more people seemed to be in
households where at least one person was working, and demand sharing resulted in a
greater overall financial stability than seemed to be the case for Mount Isa people.
Greater access to employment opportunities, education and other services provided in
metropolitan areas would be one likely cause of such differences. This resulted in less
stress as households did not struggle to cater for their visitors as much and often
visitors also had a greater ability to move to other households if this need arose.
Interviewees in all field sites found a certain amount of stress that had little or nothing
to do with numbers. Health was an important factor in people’s levels of stress,
particularly regarding caring for the elderly. In Swan, age was a worry in another way
as people who had been living as visitors in the homes of their kin for at least a
decade understandably despaired of ever having a home of their own. They saw
themselves growing older with a self-perceived lower standard of health than their
householder kin. In regard to household stress in Swan, this was an important factor
for those experiencing secondary homelessness directly and for their kin who worried
deeply on their behalf that these secondary homeless people had never had a home
of their own.
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There are some distinct differences in the way crowding is managed between
metropolitan sites and regional centres. In Carnarvon and Mount Isa, there were
support services that were put in place when the field officers of the local housing
department office perceived a household becoming stressed in a variety of ways
including in terms of numbers, difficulties in living in town as opposed to bush lifestyle,
unwanted visitors who were disrupting the household and putting it in danger of
disbanding and so forth. In Swan, there was no such support from the housing
department and limited support of this kind in Inala. The most common response
reported in these situations was the commencement of visits from the Department of
Child Protection which, given the history of the Stolen Generations, was not perceived
as support but as a threat that children were in danger of being removed from the care
of their parents.
The discussed antecedent factors of an overall housing shortage for Indigenous
people in both metropolitan and regional areas, continual stress caused by premature
death of family and friends, and relatively high levels of unemployment contributed to
stress and crowding in all sites.
7.11 Further factors influencing government perceptions of Indigenous crowding
As discussed by us and additional authors in a forthcoming publication (Memmott et
al. 2012 forthcoming), additional factors that are imperative in understanding current
Indigenous crowding measurement are the way in which household numbers of
residents are counted and recorded by government in instruments like the five-yearly
National Census or the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey
(NATSISS 2008). To summarise the argument we make there, these survey
instruments do not take into account the culturally and economically driven mobility
within and between Indigenous households and communities, do not currently record
visitors who stay less than six months, and are poorly resourced to record homeless
people or those who live in improvised or self-built dwellings.
The relationship between homelessness and crowding is thus not well understood at a
quantitative and statistical level, despite well-known definitions of homelessness that
include ‘couch surfing and serial visitation as forms of secondary homelessness’.
While changes to these survey instruments are expensive and would not capture
interstitial data, their reform and culturally appropriate revision would seem imperative.
Additional means of obtaining fine-grained data to ascertain multiple typical patterns
of the interlinked issues of mobility, homelessness and crowding are needed, in order
to produce a more holistic understanding.
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8 POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF FINDINGS
8.1 National policy implications for crowding definition
In the social sciences, crowding models have employed a stress-based definition of
crowding for at least 40 years. In contrast, Australian policy-makers, particularly in
Indigenous housing, have consistently employed density models of crowding (usually
persons per bedroom), including during the policy period of the Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). Such models have in turn dictated the
distribution of Commonwealth housing funds to Aboriginal communities under the
Commonwealth Housing Infrastructure Program (CHIP) in the 1990s and early 2000s.
When the Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program (SIHIP)
commenced in 2008, the reduction of crowding was a primary policy goal of this
program also, driven largely by family violence and child abuse reports, particularly
the little children are sacred report by the Northern Territory Board of Inquiry into the
Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, (Northern Territory Government
2007). However, it has been argued herein that without knowledge of the Aboriginal
constructs of crowding and the specific values and rules that, if broken, can generate
stress and loss of control, it is not possible to have an accurate understanding of
crowding. Furthermore, policy-makers cannot readily guarantee the accuracy, efficacy
or validity of their crowding measures because of known issues of undercounting in
the Census and NATSISS (Memmott et al. forthcoming 2012b) and a reliance on
density measures that do not account for stress as a factor in crowding. Nevertheless
media statements from the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing,
Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCHSIA) continue to emphasise the
importance of reducing Aboriginal household crowding to increase child safety (ABC
News online 2011).
Sanders (2008) discusses the dominant approaches to Indigenous policy issues in
Australia over the last 40 years which have alternated between striving for equality on
the one hand, and the recognition of difference on the other. Elsewhere, one of the
current authors (Memmott 1990) has earlier described these policy approaches as
mainstreaming versus culturally targeted service delivery respectively. Sanders
argues that the concept of equality has been favoured in recent mainstreaming policy
trends, but reminds us that social justice can at times be better achieved through the
recognition of the different needs of Aboriginal groups. Recognition of different needs
on the grounds of ‘race’ or culture is better aligned with legal principles of avoiding
‘indirect discrimination’ (Memmott 1990). Sanders argues that a focus on nationwide
statistical analysis of Indigenous people’s status in, for example, housing, should be
complemented with a more specific qualitative approach to Indigenous housing needs
(Sanders 2008, pp.96–97). In our view, this would include a definition in policy and a
measure of crowding that encompasses relevant Indigenous cultural practices and
values.
In Australia, the density model of determining crowding using the Canadian National
Occupancy Standard (CNOS) is currently widely used, which employs bedroom
density to determine the residential capacity of a house. The CNOS is also used in the
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (NATSISS), one of the
primary tools employed by Australian governments in determining and assessing
Aboriginal household crowding problems. The CNOS rules dictate that children over
the age of five of different genders should not share a bedroom. The CNOS is rarely
questioned in terms of validity, although the current authors and others did undertake
a critique of its use in NATSISS (Memmott et al. forthcoming 2012b) and others have
done so over the decades (Jones 1991).
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Table 42: Acceptable bedroom occupants as defined by the Canadian National
Occupancy Standard (CNOS)
Source: Memmott et al. 2012, Table 2, p.9
The use of the CNOS occurs despite the impact of known Indigenous-specific cultural
and behavioural factors such as high residential mobility, cultural obligations to
accommodate kin and other visitors, avoidance behaviours that determine the
suitability of particular sleeping and other living arrangements based on complex kin
relationships, the strong emotional impact of household (or public) shaming for the
violation of such sociospatial rules, and preference for outdoor living among some
groups. These have all been confirmed as antecedent factors to crowding in our
current case studies. The basis of the CNOS is that only gender and age determine
who can share a bedroom and these metric rules have a basis not in Indigenous
cultures but appear to be derived from assumed Anglo norms of privacy and
individuality.
Successive studies have shown that in Aboriginal cultures, the age limit at which
children of mixed genders sharing bedrooms is higher than it is in White Australian
society (Hamilton 1981; Burbank 1988; Birdsall 1990; Musharbash 2008; Birdsall-
Jones et al. 2010). There have therefore been analyses available for many years
describing Aboriginal sleeping arrangements that contradict the housing design
assumptions on household structure, and hence the conceptions of crowding and
appropriate sleeping arrangements. It is apparent that these have not been taken into
account in planning and policy on Aboriginal housing. It should be noted that this is
not always the fault of departments of housing. State and federal housing ministers
may occasionally issue directives that leave no time or opportunity for state
departments to develop or implement innovative housing design (e.g. Marmion 2010).
In summary, we recommend that Australian Government policy on house crowding
shift to recognise a combined density and stress model of crowding, and for the
Indigenous population that culturally-specific antecedent and mediating factors be
seen as integral to such a model.
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8.2 The Canadian National Occupancy Standard and the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Social Survey
Use of the Canadian National Occupancy Standard as a measure of ‘crowding’ is
therefore problematic for government. Despite critiques of CNOS and density
measures in general, few alternatives have been proposed.
A key problem then as we have argued elsewhere (Memmott et al. 2012) is that
surveys such as the National Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, which
rely on CNOS are, at best, a snapshot of household sizes and profiles and probably
offer a blurred vision caused by the inaccurate reporting of visitors. NATSISS does not
readily capture the flows of people in and out of households, the periodic formation of
large Indigenous households and the various stress-generating pressures that fall on
Indigenous households, including factors that are outside householder’s immediate
control such as the chronic shortage of housing for Indigenous people, high
Indigenous unemployment, the early average age of death for Indigenous people, and
the prevalence of single parent households. These deficiencies mitigate against an
accurate modelling of crowding even though government departments and other
agencies persist in extrapolating findings on crowding from the NATSISS data. The
complexity we have demonstrated in the antecedent factors, perception, mediating
coping mechanisms and culturally-specific drivers of house crowding, makes a
survey-based density measure as a stand-alone model of crowding reasonably
inaccurate and only partially helpful.
Scaling up or extrapolating NATSISS survey results may also mask local contextual
factors, and caution is therefore counselled in the use of NATSISS or Census findings
to direct government program expenditure that aims to redress housing shortages. It
may be that richer data or more finely-tuned measures are required, despite the
potential cost or complexity of gaining such information. In our view, NATSISS
findings are better used as a first step to decision-making only, to be followed with
more in-depth community surveys or consultation prior to expenditure decisions. We
argue that this would produce more targeted and better value outcomes, which relate
to a more accurate account of community need. Just as health assessments cannot
be made via a simple survey questionnaire, separate from patient diagnoses by
medical practitioners, similarly the complexity of house crowding requires a more in-
depth and nuanced ‘diagnosis’. We have confirmed in this study that crowding exists,
that in many cases it is severe, and certainly seems to be more widespread than
NATSISS and Census would imply, but the cultural and behavioural nature of the
causes of crowding and possible solutions require more investigations than the
NATSISS survey data can currently provide. (Memmott et al. 2012)
The findings from this current study support our previous recommendations for
improving understandings of Indigenous crowding in association with the NATSISS
survey. In addition to improving the NATSISS survey and supplementing it with
context-rich and qualitative data, we have made four suggestions (Memmott et al.
2012) on additional research that should be encouraged to obtain complementary
findings for those of the NATSISS survey:
In general, combined quantitative and qualitative methods should be developed and employed to better contextualise and model crowding and spatial needs in Indigenous households.
More longitudinal case studies should be undertaken so as to understand household dynamics; these to be separate studies to NATSISS, but to complement the NATSISS findings.
165
An effective technique needs to be developed to capture flows of people in and out of households.
More research is needed on the nature of the relationships between core and temporary household members, for example is ‘visitor’ an appropriate term?
What does it mean to Aboriginal people who are serial or repeated dwellers in a
home, do they identify with such a term? We suspect Aboriginal householders never
call visiting kin ‘visitors’, they are all just family.
Finally, there is a need for a new metric to assess Indigenous households and
whether they are crowded. A key design issue for such a metric would be the level of
complexity and the cost (time involved) of using it. Alternatively, we suggest that a
statistical algorithm technique be developed to incorporate a ‘visitor factor’ and/or a
‘household mobility factor’ into the NATSISS data weighting process (Memmott et al.
2012)
8.3 Housing management policy
In our view, the prescribed household size in the tenancy agreement needs to be
managed with a degree of administrative flexibility dependant on a range of factors,
including:
Availability of spare housing stock in local area and accessibility by Indigenous families to renting such stock (given place-based attachments & the importance of the proximity of living near kin for some people).
Availability of emergency accommodation facilities for homeless people or people causing crowding in households.
Availability of TAFE (or similar) courses on housekeeping skills and budgeting, in which householders could enrol.
Circumstances of large household formation—whether controlled by the householder or not (i.e. whether creating stress or not).
Neighbourhood crowding pressures on tenancies.
In the absence of a simple metric assessment of crowding, it is recommended that
local Department of Housing Offices take full advantage of the skills and capacities of
their Indigenous staff who are able to identify the presence among their Indigenous
clients of the types of crowding stresses outlined in this report, and to provide some
degree of preferential service support for such clients.
Notwithstanding the desirability of flexible support for tenants whose needs are
complex and can include the desire for large households, a complementary strategy
of moving out visitors who are causing household stress to alternative emergency
accommodation, for example Mount Isa’s Jimalya Topsy Harry centre. An approach
based in understanding and meeting householder and resident needs, rather than the
application of inflexible rules is required.
This approach is of course a problem if alternative options such as emergency
accommodation are not available. A further recommendation of our report is that
regional towns and metropolitan suburbs with substantial Indigenous populations be
provided with facilities such as emergency accommodation. To this end we
recommend that further research and evaluation of emergency accommodation
facilities be undertaken, and good practice facilities be publicised as models for future
centres such as the Jumalya Topsy Harry Centre in Mount Isa (Memmott & Nash
2012).
166
The need for administrative flexibility is contradicted in Western Australia by the
recently revised ‘three strikes policy’. The content of the policy has already been
provided (Section 2.4.3), but it should be emphasised that this policy provides little
scope for ameliorative measures and currently has the status of the dominant method
through which Indigenous housing management personnel may respond to offensive
behaviour emanating from Aboriginal households. Regardless of what the reality of
the situation may be, Aboriginal people interviewed in Swan believe that the policy is
being deliberately used by racist neighbours to rid the neighbourhood of any
Aboriginal presence. It is not difficult to understand why they should believe this, and
there is no evidence to show that it does not happen. This belief functions to increase
the anxiety with which Aboriginal householders regard their White Australian
neighbours. To put it briefly, the ‘three strikes policy’ is a deleterious influence on race
relations in the metropolitan region. Another consideration is the effect of the policy on
the DoH (WA) itself. Since the changes in the policy were put in place, the DoH (WA)
has had to develop a new department that deals wholly and solely with the
assessment of police reports and the complaints of neighbours and providing advice
on each report or complaint as to whether it is sustainable or not. This must surely
reduce the DoH (WA)’s capacity to act in other, more fruitful areas of housing
management and policy development which would go to improving the sustainability
of Aboriginal public housing tenancies. The authors would recommend that a socio-
economic impact assessment occur of the ‘three strikes policy’.
The policy of preventing those from renting public housing who earn above a certain
maximum wage should also be revised and refined for Indigenous households.
Recognition is necessary that certain more financially wealthy and stable households
provide valuable spill-over accommodation and social capital in areas that have
limited access to support people. Such stable hub households need to be supported
within more flexible policy formulations. Penalising households that have additional
social capacity to accommodate others has the effect of exacerbating neighbourhood
crowding issues.
Ideally, there should be a managerial process of reassignment of a transformed
household to a more suitably sized house as the children grow older and more are
born. This is the stated intention of the CNOS and the POS. However, in our study
sites, this seems to happen only sometimes, usually because there are few larger
houses in the proximity of the existing house where children may be established in
school, and where kinship networks have become important to the family. Once a
family are housed it is only with severe crowding noted, that they are able to establish
a case of extreme need which is required to be allocated a larger house. In fact, what
might often happen is that no housing reassignment occurs and the family must find
ways to manage the situation within the same structure that was appropriate when the
children were young. We therefore recommend the construction of new stock (or
extension of existing stock) to ensure there are adequate large houses (five, six-
bedroom) in Aboriginal neighbourhoods.
8.4 Homelessness policy
By definition, secondary homelessness includes crowded households15. However, as
discussed above, measurement of this phenomenon in Australia usually employs a
density formula (CNOS). More accurate measurement would require a stress-based
definition of crowding. This would include the ‘at risk of homelessness’ category
definition by Memmott et al. (2004) with its sub-categories of ‘experiencing crowding’
15
Unfortunately, the newly revised definition paper on homelessness by the Australian Bureau of Statistics of September 2012 (ABS 2012) was released too late to inform the current analysis
167
and ‘dysfunctionally mobile persons’. The latter sub-category involves a stress-based
definition of crowding, whereas ‘dysfunctionally mobile persons’ are those in a state of
continual or intermittent residential mobility, including temporary residence (e.g. crisis
accommodation) that is a result of personal and/or social problems for example
violence, alcohol and substance abuse, lack of safety or security in a social sense,
personality or identity crisis, lack of emotional support and security.
There is also a matter of social justice involved in this matter. As we have pointed out
several times in this and other reports (e.g. Birdsall-Jones et al. 2010) there are few
other options for the homeless. In Aboriginal society, the cultural imperative to house
one’s homeless kinfolk provides Aboriginal people with a safety net that is largely
unavailable in Anglo-Celtic Australian society. The situation is not that no-one other
than Aboriginal people may be prepared to take in their homeless kinfolk. Rather,
Aboriginal culture is unique in that in many communities it is the norm to provide or
find shelter for kin when asked. This provides an important public service in that the
numbers of homeless people living rough would increase significantly if this
systematic approach were not taken in Aboriginal society. This is the primary issue
involved in the ‘three strikes policy’. It discourages Aboriginal householders from
taking in their homeless kinfolk. The effect of this on homeless levels in Western
Australia remains to be objectively assessed.
As we have noted, there are Aboriginal people who have never had a house and who
have been living with their housed kinfolk all their lives. There are no figures on this,
but if there were, it would be of use to all Australian governments (including DoH
(WA)) in gauging housing needs. In summary, we recommend that governments
develop improved models of Indigenous crowding to better inform identification and
measurement of secondary homelessness.
8.5 Child welfare and protection policy
Programs and funding that offer women the opportunity to increase their agency and
autonomy would seem to reduce both crowding and children’s exposure to abuse or
dysfunction. Financial vulnerability and reliance on additional people in the house to
make ends meet causes many women household heads to feel stressed and
crowded. It also exposes children to living with people that their parents may not
choose to if more access to housing was available in the community generally.
Nevertheless (as we have discussed) the use of culturally-determined sleeping
principles places children in the safest arrangements possible. Improved access to
support for those experiencing domestic violence, financial instability and other
traumatic life events would assist in reducing stress and crowding.
As a corollary to this, support for alcohol and substance abusers to become more
functional, and support for those who perpetrate violence to reform their behaviour
would reduce both household stress and crowding, and neighbourhood crowding.16
The child welfare and protection system that operates within Aboriginal society is
driven by the power and authority of the grandmothers, mothers and aunties of the
current generation of adults (e.g. Hammill 2001). Most social workers and housing
officers who work directly with Aboriginal communities are well aware of this, and
some come to depend on the mothers and aunties for information on particular
children, young mothers who are not coping and also households that are not coping.
Whether or not these women of authority cooperate with the social workers and
16
For example, a recently documented good practice facility to manage and transit people from river-dwelling substance abuse into less harmful drinking practices and house-based domiciliary practices, is that of Topsy Harry Jimaylya Centre in Mt Isa (Memmott & Nash 2012)
168
housing officers depends partly on how they judge the trustworthiness and
competence of the individual. In our fieldwork experience, they do not cooperate if
their cooperation results in the removal of a child from the extended family or the
eviction of a household. They also are not likely to cooperate if their cooperation does
not result in improvement of the living conditions of the extended family.
The sleeping group principles described earlier can reduce the development of
environments or situations that are dangerous to children, adolescent girls and their
mothers. The description of the permeable household in Carnarvon is an example of
the development of a situation that was dangerous to the adolescent girls of the
visiting family. The mother’s problem was that because this was not her own home,
she could not ‘make the rules’ and this is a common complaint from people who must
live with their relations. The chronic housing shortage can exacerbate in this way, the
proper applications of the rules in Aboriginal society. It must be remembered that
dangerous situations such as this are not the result of household numbers and a
particular density threshold being crossed. They are the result of a failure to observe,
apply and effectively maintain the rules of Aboriginal culture regarding the proper
organisation of people into sleeping groups, and to protect the integrity of the
household.
We therefore recommend that both child welfare and housing authorities encourage
Indigenous tenants of households with children to discuss and confirm their preferred
culturally-based rules for sleeping group behaviours and where possible provide
support for those tenants in implementing such.
8.6 House design and crowding
The requests from interviewees for physical improvements to cope with crowding
included additional ablution facilities so that several people can bathe and toilet
simultaneously; the need for regular repairs and maintenance in general, and more
accommodation in some centres (especially Mount Isa), including hostels and five-
bedroom houses.
The design of state government housing typically caters for a small nuclear family
within an Anglo-Celtic Australian model. Most houses have three bedrooms, one
bathroom and a single living area. Outdoor living areas are randomly available as a
bonus to lucky householders, as are garden sheds, carports, fenced yards and other
useful features. Where additional bedrooms are supplied, as in the case of so-called
disability houses, that are sometimes four, and sometimes five bedrooms, these
include a second bathroom, but this is often a shared en-suite with a large bedroom
for the incapacitated member of the household, and does not include a bath suitable
for small children.
Census data states that Indigenous families tend to be larger and Indigenous women
have on average more children than their non-Indigenous counterparts (ABS 2011).
The Indigenous population is rapidly growing and multi-generation households are
common, especially as Indigenous teenage women are six times more likely to
become mothers and the highest birth rate for Indigenous women is among the 20–
24-year-old age groups, who in our case studies often still live in their family of origin.
These larger nuclear families and the desire to live in an extended family with frequent
visitors are not catered to by existing state housing infrastructure. This is a problem
not unique to Indigenous families, as other cultural groups who heavily use state
housing may also have large families or frequent visitors (e.g. Maori, Polynesian,
Sudanese). Standards of housing for large families in the wider community are for
much larger and better-appointed houses than state housing offers. Nevertheless, as
the recent SIHIP housing roll-out demonstrated in the Northern Territory (Davidson et
169
al. 2011, pp.99–100), there was a final focus on ‘numbers of houses provided’
restricted to an average unit cost ($450 000) resulting in a predominance of three-
bedroom houses, rather than the ‘number-of-people-housed’ approach that was
mooted initially. Larger, more flexible houses that cater for large families and visitors
would offer the opportunity of fulfilling cultural obligations to house visitors, as well as
having adequate infrastructure to do so.
Like cultural factors, house infrastructure factors can alleviate some feelings of
crowding, through changes to existing housing stock to provide carports and decks,
giving additional spaces for large gatherings, or outdoor sleeping in summer months.
Design for larger households should allow for at least two general-purpose internal
living spaces. Additional storage in the form of sheds also relieves the internal areas
of the house from having to store items that cannot fit due to increased household
numbers. Solutions to the problem of storage vary widely. Using green garbage bags
and lining them up against the walls was the most common solution, but we also
spoke to householders who had given up one bedroom for storage and made the
lounge room into a bedroom. Another problem is where to store the mattresses and
bedding for visitors. The only solution we saw to this problem was stacking them up
along the walls.
Figure 22: Storage of mattress against the wall, for use by visiting kin in a household in
Swan
Fencing of back yards is a constant request from those public housing tenants who
lack such fencing. One reason for wanting this is to prevent strangers from taking
‘shortcuts’ across the back yards. In places where there is a problem with drug and
alcohol abuse, the concern is the security of the house from theft and also, the safety
of the household. Generally speaking, adequate fencing also keeps children inside
and prevents feelings of constant surveillance and the incursion of unwanted visitors.
170
Practical low-cost design standards need to be developed by state housing offices to
suit local circumstances.
Maintenance and upgrading of households that are known to have larger numbers
should be moved to a different cycle, hence acknowledging the disproportionate wear
and tear load that they take.
Clearly then, a recommendation of our findings is for governments to provide more
appropriately designed housing and yard facilities for large Indigenous households
using the guidelines set out above and described elsewhere (e.g. Long et al. 2007,
pp.45–46); as well as more appropriate neighbourhood planning (e.g. see Davidson et
al. 2011, p.100 on the SIHIP ‘cluster housing’ concept) and better articulation of
repairs and maintenance for large households.
8.7 Indigenous home-ownership policies
A key finding with respect to housing management policy is the need for more local
and regional flexibility within overall jurisdictional policies in response to the range of
drivers of Indigenous large household formation and crowding.
Available housing stock for Indigenous people could be increased and thereby reduce
crowding by introducing more accessible and flexible forms of home-ownership
processes in urban centres (see policy recommendations in Moran et al. 2002; Svaza
& Moran 2008; Memmott et al. 2009). One aspect of this could be increasing the
capacity of people to write-off previous bad credit ratings. Many people develop a
poor credit history when young and find this very difficult to ‘shake’ in later life when
they may contemplate home ownership and have become financially more stable.
Obviously this needs to be undertaken with a realistic view of people’s capacity to pay
and willingness to commit to long-term home ownership goals. Alternative models of
home ownership are required for Indigenous people; alternative forms of funding for
those who do not fit the typical Western model of life-path.
8.8 Summary on the policy impact of the research
Our findings on the Aboriginal construct of ‘crowding’ clearly have government policy
implications not only on how Indigenous crowding is defined and its method of data
collection and analysis by the ABS, but also for policies pertaining to Indigenous
housing design, housing management, home ownership, homelessness, and child
welfare and protection.
The specific recommendations embedded in our Chapter 8 discussion can be
summarised as follows:
1. Australian Government policy on house crowding shifts to recognise a combined density and stress model of crowding, and for the Indigenous population that culturally-specific antecedent and mediating factors be seen as integral to such a model.
2. Government housing policies require a definition and a measure of crowding that encompass relevant Indigenous cultural practices and values. (In particular, the deep obligations of many, both to accommodate needy kin, and to be housed close to other kin).
3. In the absence of a simple metric assessment of crowding, it is recommended that local Department of Housing Offices take full advantage of the skills and capacities of their Indigenous staff who are able to identify the presence among their Indigenous clients of the types of crowding stresses outlined in this report, and to provide some degree of preferential service support for such clients.
171
4. The ‘three strikes policy’ in Western Australia should be assessed on the basis of social and economic impact factors.
5. The policy of preventing those from renting public housing who earn above a certain maximum wage should also be revised or applied flexibly, so as to make concessions for Indigenous households which act as community hub households.
6. Carry out the construction of new housing stock (or extension of existing stock) to ensure there are adequate large houses (5 & 6-bedroom) in Aboriginal neighbourhoods in cities.
7. Governments develop improved models of Indigenous crowding to better inform identification and measurement of secondary homelessness.
8. That both child welfare and housing authorities encourage Indigenous tenants of households with children to discuss and confirm their preferred culturally-based rules for sleeping group behaviours and where possible provide support for those tenants in implementing such.
9. Governments to provide more appropriately-designed housing and yard facilities for large Indigenous households using the guidelines set out herein and described elsewhere (e.g. Long et al. 2007, pp.45–46); as well as more appropriate neighbourhood planning (e.g. see Davidson et al. 2011. [.100 on the SIHIP ‘cluster housing’ concept) and better articulation of repairs and maintenance for large households.
10. The profiling of good-practice service delivery projects and emergency accommodation facilities with culturally-sensitive services for Aboriginal clients to alleviate crowded households (e.g. the Jimaylya Topsy Harry transitional housing accommodation centre—see Memmott & Nash 2012).
11. Notwithstanding these specific recommendations, a bottom line that remains in national Indigenous housing policy is that more housing stock17 is needed in many Indigenous population centres to alleviate crowding; the backlog (or deficit) of supply has never caught up with the Commonwealth Government’s assessments of need, ever since such needs assessments started in the 1970s in response to the 1967 Referendum (Long et al. 2007, pp.71–74).
17
Both rental stock and home-owner stock. With respect to the latter, see Aust IBA (2012), SA Home Start Finance (2012), Keystart Country (2010)
172
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APPENDIX
AHURI Crowding Survey—Interview Schedule
Interviewer:
Location:
What is your background? Where did you grow up? Where have you lived?
1. Record type of house. Who owns it? Who is it rented from? Who is the boss of this place? Who is in charge of the family here [head of the house]?
1.1 Type of house
Detached dwelling
Duplex
Flat
Other
1.2 Rental or home owner?
Is this house:
Rented?
or, do you own it?
1.3 If rented, who owns house?
State government rental
Indigenous Community Housing Organization rental
Other Social Housing Co-op rental
Private owner rental
Other
1.4 Who is in charge of the people in this house here? [head of house, boss for this place, etc.]
1.
2.
(optional; if two people given)
182
1.5 Where did you (for both if two people) grow up? What’s your home town or
community?
2. How many sleeping spaces are there and who stays where?
[Do rough outline plan of the house and allocate people on the plan, or
alternatively let the interviewee do the plan drawing.]
Note also the general décor of the house including
furniture
location of hearths/ cooking places in the yard if any
the state of repair of the house
personalisation of the house, if any.
2.1 Number of Sleeping Spaces and who stays where?
2.2 Scale of Household materialization
A. Objects randomly located including refuse, no storage
inside house of clothes etc.
B. Few material possessions, but refuse collected, house
swept
C. Objects randomly located, but house furnished, swept,
refuse collected
No M/F Age Names
Bedroom 1
Bedroom 2
Bedroom 3
Bedroom 4
Bedroom 5
Garage
Lounge/dining room
Kitchen
Store room
Veranda 1
Veranda 2
Yard camps
Other room
183
D. Object storage visible but some objects randomly located
also, house swept, cleaned
E. Storage used for most possessions, personalization of
rooms, decorative components
N.B. More categories may have to be added. Alternatively discuss variants in analytic
discussion. Aim is to see if correlation with visitor behaviour and extent of control of
visitors.
Alternatively tick/circle in this table
House
cleanliness
Yard/
Veranda
Cleanliness
Functionality Storage Personalisation
refuse in
house
refuse in
yard/
veranda
obvious and
serious signs of
damage to
property: broken
windows,
broken doors,
broken taps,
broken furniture
Objects on floor of
house
no
personalisation
of space, very
limited furniture
house
swept but
not ‘clean’
yard/verand
a tidy but
not ‘clean’
Some damage
to property,
cracked
windows, slight
damage to walls
Objects both in
storage/cupboards
and on floor
some
personalisation,
e.g. paintings,
photographs,
TV, limited but
functional
furniture
house
‘clean’
yard/verand
a ‘clean’
house functions
seem to be
operational
Objects in
storage/cupboards
frequent
personalisation
of spaces: lots
of pictures,
photographs,
TV, furniture in
good condition
house
‘clean’ and
tidy
yard/verand
a ‘clean’
and tidy
(e.g. garden
beds
tended)
Objects given pride
of place
3. How many people live in your house on a regular basis? How many visitors are there? How are they related?
[Draw a rough genealogy showing all residents; identify interviewee]
184
3.1 Number of people living here Total number: Number of people living here on a regular basis/all the time Number of visitors living here on a regular basis (week or more) Number of short-term or overnight visitors (a few nights only) Number of day-time (only) visitors (do not stay overnight) N.B. May have to enumerate visitors as ‘car loads’ How many daytime visitors do you get? How many people eat here? Or use the shower in the daytime?
4. Do you have a tenancy agreement that says how many people can stay? If so, how many?
4.0 Tenancy Agreement
4.1 Do you have a signed tenancy agreement? Yes No Don’t know
4.2 Does it say how many people can stay? Yes No Don’t know
4.3 (If yes) how many people is it? No.
5. Have you had crowding in your house in the last year (since last winter)? [Elicit the separate times and number of incidents, starting from last winter]
5.0 History of crowding
5.1 Have you had crowding in your home in the last year (since last winter)? Yes No Don’t know 5.2 List incidents or episodes in order of happening [Suggest label with a dominant characteristic e.g. ‘Uncle Roger’s visit’, ‘Rodeo visitors’, ‘Nanna’s funeral time’, etc]
1st time
2nd time
3rd time
4th time
5th time
6th time
Go to Question 6
185
5.3 Visitors
If no acknowledgement of crowding, switch direction of interview to visitors: Do you get many visitors here? 6. Describe what happened each time [switch to notebook here]:
Optional questions:
Who came? When was this? Their relationship? For how long?
Which town/community did they come from?
What caused the crowding? Was there more than one cause? [optional]
Did you get upset, have to growl?
How stressed did you get? – just a little bit upset/fairly upset/very upset?
[Need to elicit if any stress]
Were you worried/shamed/talking strongly/’growling’/angry/fretting?
Why did you get stressed?
Were the neighbours involved?
Was the house owner (or Department of Housing or Co-op or whatever the
case) involved?
What did you do to sort out the problem?
Did you change anything in your house to sort it out? For example more
furniture, add blinds, put on new extensions? Or moved people around in the
house; or move people out of the house? [Mark on floor plan if convenient]
What do you think if we leave a camera with you and you take photos of any problem
areas that you can identify in your house, and that you think we need to know about
it? We don’t have to use the photos in our report. Just to help you remember things.
AHURI Research Centres
AHURI Queensland Research Centre
AHURI RMIT Research Centre
AHURI Southern Research Centre
AHURI Swinburne-Monash Research Centre
AHURI UNSW-UWS Research Centre
AHURI Western Australia Research Centre
Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute
Level 1, 114 Flinders Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000
Phone +61 3 9660 2300 Fax +61 3 9663 5488
Email [email protected] Web www.ahuri.edu.au
